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Morris, Samue] Leslie, 


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1937. 


The romance of home Missiong 








The Romance of Home 
Missions 


aN OF PRI 
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OCT 2@ 1975 









“Ky ae 
“Aogica, sent 


HOME MISSION Sel DY: 
/ By 2 
SAieMorris: DiI. Lie), 


Executive Secretary of Home Missions, Presbyterian 
Church in the United States 


AUTHOR OF 


“At Our Own Door” “The Task That Challenges” 
“Presbyterianism, Its Principles and Practice” 
“The Records of the Morris Family” 
“Christianizing Christendom” 


“Fle that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.’—Martr. 10:39 
“Of whom the world was not worthy.’—Hesrews 11:38 


PRESBYTERIAN COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION 
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 


_ 





RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 
WHITTET & SHEPPERSON, PRINTERS: 
1924 


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FOREWORD 


“FTRO every man his work’—in the co-operative scheme 

of life. To every church its mission—in promoting 
the Kingdom of God. To every book its purpose in the 
service of Christ and humanity. 

The previous books of the author had each its own in- 
dividuality of thought and aim; but all, a common purpose 
of propagating Home Mission principles. Their generous 
reception by the Church encourages the present effort. 
dealing chiefly with personalities—concrete illustrations 
of principles. The others attempted the solution of prob- 
lems. This will be devoted more exclusively to practices 
justified by undisputed results. 

The dominant feature of this study will consist of an 
exhibit of the daring adventure and persistent effort of 
the Home Mission heroes of faith, who, undisturbed by 
adverse circumstances and unmoved by the bitter opposi- 
tion of blatant foes or the strictures of well meaning but 
misguided critics, toil on with tireless patience, sustained 
by an abiding faith in the ultimate triumph of their cause. 
It will undertake to interpret the dauntless spirit of this 
noble class of men enlisted in an unpopular but blessed 
service. The entire array of facts will constitute an un- 
disguised, and we trust, an effectual appeal to the Church 
to do substantial justice to her uncrowned heroes. 

The story of “The Romance of Home Missions” is 
hereby dedicated to a holy cause, at whose shrine the au- 
thor has paid tribute during his entire ministry, and to 
which he has devoted his official life at the call of the 
Church. May the Spirit of God crown the effort with 
success, and the Church at length pronounce the richest 
benedictions on the devoted heads of her worthiest ser- 
vants, whose “gentleness has made her great.” 


Atlanta, Georgia. SAMUEL LeEstIz Morris. 
G 





CONTENTS 


Page 
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encelaemance 01 renerglities 67% uw a A ae ask. 7 
SUSU OMmance Oli xpansiGMs lass kL ae aie eas 23 
Be MNOMALICeSOT THEBES uk vals Was cave tuye 5] 
Gu OMiaAnCe ObeN AOTC yess ra weite canes 85 
The Romance of Race Relationships........ 123 
igeOmanceso. buildings nays utes alt apt <. bo7 
ics homance, of hersonality:\ as vise e. +e. 3: 183 
The Romance of a World Kingdom Task.... 221 
BEL eStiONTiall Cath) he key) sori, hoes Abe die Ca 251 


ee MATE OAL At el ae le co a POT awl ial, 255 


“WHAT MAKES A NATION GREAT” 





Not serried ranks with flags unfurled, 

Not armored ships that gird the world, 

Not hoarded wealth or busy mills, 

Not cattle on a thousand hills, 

Not sages wise, or schools or laws, 

Not boasted deeds in freedom’s cause— 
All these may be and yet the state 
In the eve of God be far from great. 


That land is great which knows the Lord, 

Whose sons are guided by His Word. 

Where justice rules twixt man and man, 

Where love controls in act and plan, 

Where breathing in his native air 

Each soul finds joy in praise and prayer— 
Thus may our country, good and great, 
Be God’s delight—man’s best estate. 


—AQLEXANDER BLACKBURN. 


Chapter One 


The eRe 
ROMANCE of GENERALITIES 


By way of introduction, the story of Home Missions 
necessitates a brief consideration of fundamental princi- 
ples, preliminary definitions, a general survey of the field, 
the scope of operations, the variety of service, the types 
of missionary qualifications, together with the aims and 
purposes of the work. No one word in the English lan- 
guage has sufficient comprehensiveness to include all ot 
these specifications in the scope of its significance. For 
the lack, therefore, of a better term, the word “Generali- 
ties”—not necessarily “glittering’’—1is pressed into service 
and made to do duty in this first chapter to classify mis- 
cellaneous items. 


“Truth is Stranger than Fiction” 


Many glibly and thoughtlessly quote this proverb, trom 
influence of example or from force of habit, with but 
little appreciation of its full significance. An effort is 
hereby undertaken to emphasize its force and illustrate 
its meaning. 


Nearly fifty years ago Edward Bellamy wrote a re- 
markable book entitled, “Looking Backward,” which was 
the sensation of the day, but necessarily short-lived by 
reason of the rapid succession of scientific achievements. 
It was published at a time when the “telephone” ob- 
scured “the seven wonders of the world.” It was based 


7 


8 The Romance of Home Missions 


upon the supposition that, by some medical achievement, 
an individual was placed under the narcotic influence of 
a powerful drug, by means of which animation was sus- 
pended but life preserved for one hundred years, Upon 
awaking—like Rip Van Winkle or an animal from hiber- 
nation—‘“Looking Backward,” he finds himself in a new 
world of thought and life. The most marvelous concep- 
tion of the fertile brain of Bellamy pictured nothing 
greater, a hundred years later, than the triumph of the 
telephone. Invalids, shut in, listened by its device to a 
sermon in a nearby church. Audiences by similar means 
had the benefit of lectures delivered in some central audi- 
torium. It would be impossible to read that book unsmil- 
ing today, except as a matter of curiosity. Not only 
would the thrills be lacking, but its marvelous feats would 
be ridiculously tame. | 


The phonograph followed quickly, placing the human 
voice on permanent record—rendering the marvelous 
voice of a Caruso forever immortal. Audiences can still 
hear him singing his rapturous solos and will for thou- 
sands of years. If such a feat had been hinted a hali 
century ago, it would have been deemed the wild ravings 
of a disordered brain. The marvels of the radio in real 
life have put fiction to blush. The ,writer has preached 
to invisible audiences and had echoes in the public press 
from far distant cities and has heard messages himselt 
from beyond the seas, spoken in London and Germany. 
As an illustration, on one occasion he listened in Georgia 
over a private radio to a lecture being delivered in Kansas 
City, and by soft pedaling a musical number being played 
at the same time in Louisville, Ky., the latter served as 
a delicate accompaniment to the lecture. In a few years 


The Romance of Home Missions 9 


this achievement will seem to others as tame as Bellamy’s 
“Looking Backward.” 


TI MECE 


“Arabian Nights’ with its “Aladdin’s Lamp,” ‘Twenty 
Thousand Leagues under the Sea,’ and “Around the 
World in Eighty Days,’ by Jules Verne—the wildest 
fancies of the human imagination—are now useful only 
to amuse children or to measure the greater marvels of 
real life. Readers of this prediction will live to see jour- 
neys around the world in ten days by aeroplane. ‘Im- 
possible!’ By no means. One hundred miles an hour 
in the air is no unusual experience. This would be at the 
rate of 2,400 miles a day. With completed arrangements 
and relays at stragetic points, that speed would carry the 
traveler around the world in ten days. 


If it should be contended that a uniform speed of one 
hundred miles an hour cannot be maintained, then con- 
sider it but an “average” in view of this official announce- 
ment which appeared recently in the Associated Press 
Dispatches : 


“Mitchell Field, New York, September 18th.—Lieuten- 
ant Al Williams, navy pilot, today established two new 
electrically timed air speed records over the measured one 
kilometer course at Curtiss field. He averaged two hun- 
dred and one-half miles an hour in four trips over the 
course, and on one flight, aided by a brisk wind from be- 
hind, he reached the speed of two hundred and sixty-six 
miles an hour. Both records were accepted by the navy 
department as authentic.” 


In an incredibly short period it will be possible to “see’ 
by some future device—“teleopticon,” if the author may 
have the privilege of coining a wor 





as we now 


10 The Romance of Home Missions 


can hear by radio. “Impossible!” That was exactly the 
same comment in regard to some of the author’s college 
speeches—still on record—when forty years ago he an- 
nounced that he expected to travel by electricity and navi- 
gate the air in ships. “Impossibility,” as to scientific 
achievements, will soon be an “obsolete” word in mod- 
ern lexicons. | 


In a still different sense, truth is stranger than fiction. 
The charm of fiction lies in the construction of the plot, 
the air of mystery, the unfolding of schemes and counter- 
schemes—the excitement of the reader’s interest swayed 
by alternate hopes and fears—till the sudden denoue- 
ment ending in the triumph of right, the vindication of 
the hero and his escape from the seemingly inextricable 
mesh of evil machinations woven to entangle and ruin him. 


Nothing in fiction, however, can compare with the 
tragedies in real life, the singular coincidences, the thrill- 
ing surprises, the uncertainty of the issues, and the ro- 
mance of a heroism, which is not faked, and not sustained 
by extraordinary circumstances, but enacted in the com- 
mon experiences of the weary monotony of an undra- 
matic life. George Eliot in one of her books eulogizes 
this type of heroism, stating that in some appalling calam- 
ity, or extraordinary test, the individual is sustained by 
the thrill of the shock which paralyzes for the moment all 
sensation; but on the contrary she contends that the 
noblest heroism is that which endures patiently in dull 
daily suffering, smiling to hide the agony and restrain 
the unbidden tears—this being the true melodramatic in 
real life. History, observation, and experience alike, 
therefore, confirm the proverb—‘Truth is stranger than » 
fiction.” 


The Romance of Home Missions 11 


Romance vs. Fiction 


It is equally true that romance is stranger than fiction 
though the two are often and erroneously used as synony- 
mous terms. Romance is the heroic element, or glamour, 
of real life. Fiction is the highly colored painting which 
counterfeits the real. | 


“Tis distance lends enchantment to the view 
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.” 

That sentiment corresponds to “Fiction.” Nearness 
dissipates the fictitious “hue.” The coloring is unreal, an 
“enchantment” whose spell is broken as soon as the “dis- 
tance” is lacking. Nevertheless, there is a real coloring 
in nature, fascinating with its bewitching beauty. The 
blending of green foliage with the somber grey stone and 
the luxurious wealth of color, contributed by myriad 
tinted wild flowers, constitute the beauties of nature—the 
aim and the despair of the landscape painter. This cor- 
responds to “Romance.” It cannot be dissipated. It is 
the very essence and soul of nature. 


Romance in Missions 


The foregoing preliminary observations are intended to 
illumine and forecast the purpose of this study of Home 
Missions—an “old, old story,’ herein presented from a 
new viewpoint. The story of the Home Missionary 1s 
not highly colored fiction but a thrilling romance of real 
adventure. His self-denials and hardships are that of 
the pioneer, blazing the path, not simply through the 
‘primeval forests, sharing the fortunes and misfortunes of 
his parishioners, but laying foundations for a spiritual em- 


12 The Romance of Home Missions 


pire in which he is forced to make “brick without straw,’ 
compelled to toil without tools and to “endure hardness 
as a good Soldier of Jesus Christ.” Often the hardest 
of his trials is being compelled to witness the depriva- 
tions of his family, as his companions in tribulations. 
His is not the mock heroism of the moving-picture actor. 
for no audience witnesses his dramatic experiences. No 
halo encircles his brow, for he has little opportunity to 
tell his story to sympathetic audiences and but little recog- 
nition from the Church he serves. His is the highest type 
of heroism, enduring the monotony of the unostentations 
common-place duties which tax faith, courage, patience 
and spiritual strength, more ae the excitement of dar- 
ing adventure. 


This well-established truth is saulctti iby presented in 
the familiar couplet of the poem: 
“One dared to die; in a swift moment’s space 


Fell in war’s forefront, laughter on his face, 
Bronze tells his fame in many a market place. 


“Another dared to live; the long years through 

Felt his heart’s blood ooze like crimson dew, 

For duty’s sake and smiled. And no one knew. ” 

As a specimen of the forthcoming contents’ of this ° 

treatise, and to advertise its avowed purpose, the follow- 
ing account is taken from the Home Mission Herald: 


“About forty years ago there was one county in South 
Carolina which had not a Presbyterian church within its 
bounds. Edgefield county had often been unsuccessfully 
investigated, and was always regarded as a reproach to 
the Presbyterian Church in that strong Presbyterian state. 
At last a little church of four members was organized 
in this county, which boasted 4,000 communicants in one 


The Romance of Home Missions 13 


other denomination. These four Presbyterians did not 
even live in the same place. 


“The Presbytery, as an experiment which gave but 
little promise of success, sent a young man as evangelist 
to this county. He opened four mission stations, preach- 
ing in buildings borrowed from other denominations, or 
in open-air pavilions. It required him to ride in his buggy 
on Sabbaths alone 1,000 miles a year, as he preached twice 
each Sabbath at different places. Being isolated from his 
brethren, it was necessary for him to preach sometimes 
in protracted meetings for a month at a time without help. 
He had no constituency, but much opposition from the 
prepudices and jealousies of people who came in contact 
for the first time with Presbyterianism. 


“No one except the Searcher of all hearts knew the 
discouragements, difficulties, and heartaches of that young 
man. Temptations to leave and accept easier and more 
remunerative offers frequently tested his fidelity and per- 
severance. Yet for seven years and a half he stood to 
his lonely and discouraging post; and when compelled at 
last to seek a less arduous field, he left behind him four 
beautiful houses of worship, a membership composed of 
the most select people in the county; and the Edgefield 
Church has been self-sustaining for nearly thirty years. 
Is there no romance in work of this character ?” 


Tributes 


Dr. Egbert W. Smith, now Executive Secretary of For- 
eign Missions, at the time pastor of the Second Presby- 
terian Church in Louisville, Ky., thrilled his Synod in 
‘Session at Henderson, Ky., by an eloquent eulogy of the 
Home Missionary, in which he stated that the greatest 


14 tes The Romance of Home Missions 


sacrifices and unmatched heroisms of the present day are 
in the arduous home mission fields hidden from the ob- 
servations, and lacking the applause, of men. Dr. J. O. 
Reavis, Secretary of Foreign Missions and the Home 
Mission Secretary, seated side by side, clasped hands 
and silently bowed assent to this eulogy and to its truth. 


A similar eulogy of Dr. Henry Collin Minton, ex- 
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church, U. S. A., exactly fits the purpose and spirit of 
our present study, testifying of the faithful servants of. 
Christ in these touching words: 


“They need no mead of praise, no word of cheer—and 
too often they get none. The foreign missionary gets 
his ‘year off’ now and then, but our solitary home mis- 
sionary, plodding on year after year, never. I have seen 
something of the life and work of our home mission- 
aries in the West, and I believe that for hard work and 
poor pay, and small stint of appreciation, and all else 
which the world and the flesh eschew and fain would 
avoid; the home missionary in our western states and 
territories is the peer of any of those who are carrying 
the gospel to the far away heathen. There is a romance 
of the work in either case. They are all empire-builders, 
alike. They bring to their work richer tribute than even 
Cecil Rhodes could command. They build themselves. 
into their work. It is the romance of faith and heroism, 
and trial and self-sacrifice, but it is also the romance of 
promise and patriotism and service and of the crown at 
last.” 


“'Twicetold Tales” 


In writing the story of the “Romance of Home Mis- 
sions,’ it is impossible to avoid some phases of the work 


The Romance of Home Missions 15 


previously presented, and some things which have the ap- 
pearance of repetition; but it requires, as the Hebrew 
Prophet discovered, “Line upon line, precept upon pre- 
cept, here a little and there a little’—and withal, the “dull 
of hearing’ do not always even then assimilate the facts. 
One illustration may suffice to enforce this contention. 
In his earlier books on Home Missions, about ten years 
ago, the author placed on record the significant fact that 
Home and Foreign Missions are separated by the narrow 
margin of a river only—the Rio Grande—for nearly a 
thousand miles. Mexicans with the same needs are min- 
istered to by the Home and Foreign Missionary accord- 
ing to locality—just a matter of geography. In his pub- 
lic addresses he emphasized this fact till he was ashamed 
and afraid of the charge of repetition. Imagine the sur- 
prise therefore of hearing one of our ablest and most in- 
telligent ministers in a great address, not long since, 
allude to this “twicetold tale’ as if it were but a recent 
discovery! Surely, therefore, it is unnecessary to apolog- 
ize for presenting occasional familiar pictures in new set- 
tings. The Master, himself, advised his disciples of this 
necessity saying, “Every Scribe which is instructed unto 
the Kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a 
householder, which bringeth out of his treasure things 
new and old.” 


Definitions and Distinctions 


The missionary spirit and aim are essentially one 
whether manifested in ministering to human need, “at 
our own door’; or whether reaching in its labor of love 
“unto the uttermost part of the earth.’ The difference 
is chiefly one of geography and of administration. There 


16 The Romance of Home Missions 


is no essential difference in the work. The need of a lost 
soul is the same anywhere on the globe; but there may 
be a great difference in privileges and opportunities by 
reason of differing environments. 


In the Presbyterian Church the subject of missions 1s 
ordinarily divided into three parts. One wing of the 
army of conquest invading the uttermost parts of the 
earth is known as Foreign Missions. The opposite wing — 
of the army of occupation—designated Local Home Mis- 
sions, whether Congregational, Presbyterial or Synodical 
—is organized for the purpose of taking full possession 
of and consolidating spiritual conquests in the name of 
Christ. Between the two wings, and operating in the 
center, is Assembly’s Home Missions, their connecting 
link, designed to co-operate with both, and partaking 
partly of the character of each. This central army corps 
has a distinctive mission of such magnitude and. funda- 
mental importance, that it requires the co-operation and 
combined strength of the whole Church to make it an 
effective force in promoting and supporting the specific 
work of the other two. 


Phases of Service 


As there are seven primitive colors in nature—ex-. 
hibited in the prism and in the rainbow, and seven notes 
in music—the eighth returning to the first comprising the 
octave ; so likewise Home Missions displays itself in eight 
distinctive phases—an octave of. activities. It is further 
subdivided into two sections of four classes each: 1. The 
needy and destitute people: Pioneers, Foreigners, Moun- 
taineers, and Negroes. 2. The spiritual agencies adapted 
to meet these needs: Evangelism, Sustentation, Church 


The Romance of Home Missions 17 


Erection, and Mission Schools. The object of this treatise 
is not so much to expound the underlying principles of 
these eight departments as to illustrate the practical adap- 
tion of Christianity to the needy, through the agency of 
Assembly’s Home Missions, and to exhibit the romantic 
element in this unappreciated sphere of Service as well 
as to pay tribute to the noble army of martyrs—in the 
truest sense of the term, as witnessing for Christ by ar- 
dent testimony and consecrated lives—supplementing the 


llth chapter of Hebrews in cataloguing the heroes of 
faith. 


The Executive Committee of Home Missions is the 
authorized agency of the General Assembly and repre- 
sents the larger united work of every Synod, every 
Presbytery, and every congregation. Its special mission 
is to the dependent classes and newer sections of our 
country, a work which cannot be fully accomplished by 
any Presbytery or Synod, acting alone and separately, but 
which requires the co-operation of all the constituent parts 
of the General Assembly. The Executive Committee 1s 
the channel through which the strength of the whole 
Church comes to the aid of those Presbyteries or sec- 
tions which are unable to meet their own needs. The 
Assembly’s Home Missions is distinctive, therefore, in 
that it is the: whole Church at work, bringing all the 
Presbyteries into a spirit of unity and harmony through 
the fellowship of a common service. 


Survey of the Field 


Starting at the extreme Northeastern Mission to the 
Jews in Baltimore, Md., a comprehensive survey would 
require travel in a zigzag journey through seventeen 


18 The Romance of Home Missions 


states, ending in the extreme Southwestern Mission at 
Brownsville, Texas. The distance along a straight line be- 
tween these two points would be nearly 2,000 miles. If, - 
however, we zigzagged so as not to miss any one of our 
missions, the aggregate miles traveled would doubtless 
encircle the globe. The combined churches, schools and 
missions would show Assembly’s Home Missions occupy- 
ing a thousand stations. The aggregate number of mis- 
sionaries, their wives and dependent children would ex- 
ceed two thousand souls. If your automobile carried 
their salaries for one year it would contain a half million 
gold dollars. If it contained the amount asked of As- 
sembly’s Home Missions and actually needed to give 
each missionary comfortable support and equipment to 
maintain the work on its present basis and to conserve 
results without loss, it would be necessary to double the 
amount transported. If the car stopped at places where 
new stations should be occupied, it would double the mis- 
sions requiring double the workers and double the funds 
to operate the work. If we took a census of the nationali- 
ties served, we would have a classification of Jews, 
Czecho-Slovaks, Hungarians, Waldenses, Syrians, Cu- 
bans, Italians, French, Chinese, Indians, Mexicans, Ne- — 
groes, and native Americans. If representatives from 
each were gathered into one congregation, the confusion 
of speech would resemble the building of the tower of 
Babel—requiring some modern Apostle to be gifted with 
tongues as at Pentecost. If the automobile traveled on 
an average of a hundred miles a day, allowing time for 
reviewing the stations, it would require perhaps a see 
to complete the survey. 


The Romance of Home Missions 19 


Books on Geology and scientific research are out of date 
as soon as off the press. Missionary statistics compiled to 
exhibit the progress of the Kingdom, and data dealing 
with economics, social problems, material resources and 
spiritual assets must be restated periodically in the interests 
of truth and accuracy. 





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The Romance of Home Missions 21 


Statement of Purpose 


This preliminary chapter, as announced, is a statement 
of the purpose of this study, a survey of the field, the 
adventure of the Home Missionaries and the character 
of the service rendered. The remaining chapters will 
narrate the stories of the men and their work, not in full, 
but as specimens in several spheres of service—compris- 
ing The Romance of Home Missions. 


“Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michael, 
Two points in the adventure of the diver, 
One—when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge, 
One—when, a prince, he rises with his pearl? 
‘Festus, I plunge.” 


THE PIONEER 


What was his name? I do not know his name, 
I only know he heard God’s voice, and came: 
Brought all he loved across the sea, 
To live and work for God and me. 
Felled the ungracious oak; 
With rugged toil 
Dragged from the soil 
The thrice-guarded roots and stubborn rock; 
With plenty filled the haggard mountain side; 
And, when his work was done, without memorial died. 
No blaring trumpet sounded out his fame; 
He lived, he died—I do not know his name. 
No form of bronze and no memorial stones 
Show me the place where lie his moldering bones; 
Only a cheerful city stands, 
Built by his hardened hands; 
Only ten thousand homes, 
Where every day 
The cheerful play 
Of love and hope and courage comes. 
These are his monuments, and these alone— 
There is no form of bronze, and no memorial stone. 


—Epwarp Everett Hace. 


Chapter Two 


The 
ROMANCE of EXPANSION 


“America, America! 

God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From Sea to shining Sea.” 


The song of the poet now rings from the Atlantic to 
Pacific and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, 
in an area of 3,026,788 square miles, populated by 111,- 
— 371,056 people—at present only 37 to the square mile— 
but destined to have over a half billion before the close 
of the twentieth century. By the discovery of Columbus, 
America took its place among the continents of earth 
more than 400 years ago, but its expansion and develop- 
ment date from the Declaration of Independence—the be- 
ginning of its national life—covering a period of a cen- 
tury and a half. 


The Expansion of the Country 


In “Leavening the Nation,” Dr. Joseph B. Clark graphic- 
ally describes the expansion of America as narrated in 
the history of Sectional Nomenclature: 


“The West has had a new definition in every decade. 
‘To the Westward,’ named in the preamble of the Con- 
necticut Society, was the State of New York, ‘North- 
westward’ was Vermont. Of a much earlier period, it is 
related on good authority that a surveyor was commis- 
sioned in Massachusetts to lay out a high road from 

jah 


24 The Romance of Home Missions 


Cambridge towards Albany, as far as the public good re- 
quired. His road came to an end twelve miles from 
Boston, in the town of Weston, and the report made to the — 
government was, that the work had been pushed into the 
wilderness as far as the public need would ever require. 
A good many pieces have been added to that road, and 
before each such addition ‘the West’ has steadily re- 
treated. At different times it was on the banks of the 
Charles, the Connecticut and the Hudson; on the shores 
of the Great Lakes, in the Mississippi Valley, on the 
tops of the Rockies, and it stopped at the Pacific only 
because it could go no farther.” 


The original thirteen states occupied only a thin strip 
of land along the Atlantic Coast with unopened territory 
stretching towards the Mississippi south of the Ohio. 
From the earliest history of the country aggressive men 
have always been compelled to wage a fierce conflict 
with others strenuously opposing “the annexation of more 
territory.” No event in our national history has exerted 
a greater influence on the destiny of the country than 
the famous “Ordinance of 1787.’ Embracing the states 
of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois, a sec- 
tion of 250,000 square miles, wedge-shaped, and from 
that fact known as “the keystone of the American com- 
monwealth,” was added to the territory of the United 
States; and from that moment its real “expansion” begat. 


The nineteenth century opened with the Mississippt 
River as our western boundary. The Louisiana Purchase 
of 1803, the Annexation of Texas in 1845, and the Mexi- 
can Treaty of 1848, carried our possessions to the Pacific » 
and multiplied our territory two and a half times. 


The Romance of Home Missions 25 


It is generally supposed that the Mississippi River di- 
vides the East and West into somewhat equal areas. 
But as a matter of fact the area beyond the Mississippi 
is two and a half times the size of that on the East. To 
divide our country into equal parts, it would be neces- 
sary to begin at the mouth of the Rio Grande on the 
Mexican border and run directly north, throwing the 
larger part of Texas on the East and all immediately 
north of it as far as Canada. 


If California were placed on the map of Japan, it would 
cover the entire Empire, and there would be enough of 
California left to hide Korea. If China proper were 
placed in the West, there would be sufficient territory 
left beyond the Mississippi river to contain all the South- 
ern States east of the Mississippi River. Georgia is the 
largest State east, and yet it could be laid out in Oklahoma, 
_and there would be a strip of territory left amounting to 
more than 10,000 square miles. 


The size of the West is a twice-told tale; we are con- 
stantly hearing of the bigness of Texas and the greatness 
of the West; and yet those who read these familiar com- 
parisons do not appreciate the vast extent of territory. 
The human mind thinks of millions and billions, but has 
no conception of the meaning of such numbers. To ap- 
preciate Texas, one has to travel twenty-four hours in the 
State, on a fast train, without crossing its vast stretch of 
territory. 


“Since prehistoric times, populations have moved stead- 
ily westward, as De Tocqueville said, ‘as if driven by the 
mighty hand of God.’ And following their migrations, 
the course of empire, which Bishop Berkeley sang, has 


26 The Romance of Home Missions 


westward taken its way. ‘The world’s sceptre passed 
from Persia to Greece, from Greece to Italy, from Italy © 
to Great Britain,’ to our Mighty West, there to remain, | 
for there is no further West; beyond is the Orient. Like 
the star in the East, which guided the three Kings with 
their treasures westward, until it stood still over the 
cradle of the infant Christ, so the star of empire, rising 
in the East, has ever beckoned the wealth and power of 
the nations westward, until today it stands still over the 
cradle of the young Empire of the West, to which the 
nations are bringing their offerings.”—Josiah Strong. 


The March of the Church 


The colonization of America, though slow at first, staged 
the climactic act in the drama of human history. The Old 
World was still dreaming, when rudely awakened to the 
startling fact that the sceptre of empire, civil and religious. 
had crossed the seas in its westward sway. Behind the 
haze of the New World, events were moving rapidly, hid- 
den for the time from the eyes of Europe. The pioneer 
was felling the forest and blazing the way for the new 
empire of the Kingdom. Railroads had not yet come to 
facilitate transportation, but many a town was rapidly 
taking on the importance of a metropolis. In this forma- 
tive state, the home missionary saved the cause of civili- 
zation as he shared the fortunes and perils of the frontiers- 
man. In the cabin of the backwoodsman, in the rude — 
brush arbor, or unsheltered beneath the blue canopy of 
the heavens, the sturdy forefathers of the infant Republic 
were summoned to meet and recognize their supreme obli-. 
gation to Christ and Church. Foundations of individual 


The Romance of Home Missions 2h 


character were laid, which in turn became substantial ele- 
ments in the building of a spiritual empire. 


Pioneer Efforts 


Rapid expansion westward taxed the resources of the 
Church to keep pace with the march of civilization, that 
the latter might crystalize into Christian, rather than pa- 
gan, forms. No type of heroism calling for adventure and 
hardship eclipsed the glory of the Home Missionary, who 
bravely faced alike the privations of the wilderness and 
the tomahawk of the savage, as he shared the fate and 
strengthened the faith and courage of his struggling con- 
stituency. Such men as Clark and Whitman, Jason Lee 
and Gideon Blackburn, served a two-fold mission of pre- 
serving the menaced dominions of the Republic and of 
laying the broad foundation of a spiritual empire—des- 
tined at no distant day to dominate the world in both the 
political and spiritual realms of thought and action. Home 
Missions, in any historic account of the material develop- 
ment of our great Commonwealth, must be accorded a 
fundamental sphere of service, not simply in its effort to 
evangelize and write Christianity into the constitution of 
our ancestry, but in its indirect, but equally important, 
service of stimulating and training the leadership of the 
nation. 


The evangelistic effort of the pioneer Church, rendered 
extremely difficult by reason of its scattered constituency, 
placed additional burdens on its meager finances by neces- 
sitating sustentation funds for hundreds of struggling or- 
ganizations, unable to maintain their services, and calling 
for substantial assistance in erecting houses of worship, 
which, however primitive, taxed the resources of our fath- 


28 The Romance of Home Missions 


ers in their heroic struggles. Except for Home Mission 
enterprise and timely aid, our civilization would have 
failed, America would have repeated the follies and un- 
godliness of empires that had been impotent to deal with 
the forces of evil which wrought their destruction, and 
ours would have been another wreck on the shore of time, 
swelling the number of the derelicts of the past. Ii 
America had failed humanity and God in the new adven- 
ture, neither pen of historian nor vision of prophet could 
reckon in terms the fateful consequences. 


The Conflict of the Ages 


“No man’s land,” but recently the battle-ground be- 
tween the Allies and the enemy, has its counterpart in 
the spiritual conflict raging between the army of Christ 
and the central powers of evil. It widens or narrows, and 
constantly shifts its position, but whether on the far west- 
ern plains or in more entrenched strongholds behind long 
rows of tenement houses, it is ever the arena of a fierce 
struggle between the forces of righteousness and evil. It 
calls for daring adventure, for long marches, for bitter 
hardships, for self-denial on short rations, and not infre- 
quently for the supreme sacrifice, in occupying the out- 
posts in the regions beyond. 


Untrained and inexperienced troops are a waste of ma- 
terial and effort in a campaign against wily foes, strongly 
intrenched in fortresses well chosen and wisely manned, 
under the subtle leadership of spiritual wickedness in high 
places. Illustrations are hereby cited in order that the 
Church may appreciate the character and spirit of its un- . 
known heroes, who ordinarily receive but scant justice and 


The Romance of Home Missions 29 


little recognition, notwithstanding their valuable services 
and heroic lives. 


Examples of Adventure 


On the plains of the Panhandle, in Texas, a young 
Home Missionary occupied a strategic point, from which, 
by reason of the scarcity of religious forces, he was com- 
pelled to cover a large area of unoccupied territory. 
Twenty-five miles distant from his home, he began evan- 
gelistic services, unassisted, in a growing town. As inter- 
est developed, the leading and influential citizen of the 
community was brought under conviction. Practical dif- 
ficulties thwarted the efforts of the Missionary to bring 
him to.a decision; and yet he felt if he could only win 
this capable man, it would enable him to organize a 
church. Remembering that he had in his study a re- 
ligious tract, peculiarly adapted to meet these difficulties, 
he set himself to devise some plan of securing it for im- 
mediate use. As no other way opened up, after service one 
night he saddled his horse, rode twenty-five miles, secured 
his tract, and by daylight had ridden twenty-five miles 
back again, riding practically all night, a distance of fifty 
miles, and ready to conduct his service the next day. As 
anticipated, the tract solved the difficulty—the man was 
won, the church organized, and, as a result, strong, self- 
supporting churches occupy that section, not simply wit- 
nessing for Christ in that immediate vicinity, but one young 
man from this frontier field has already gone as a Mis- 
sionary to the far East. 


Whenever the principles of our faith are faithfully pre- 
sented and scripturally expounded, they win their way 
by the force of their inherent truth. In the distant West 


30 The Romance of Home Missions 


there labored an evangelist who never failed to enlighten 
his hearers on the subject of the Covenant of God unto 
the fathers and their children. Announcing one day during © 
evangelistic services that, on the next, he would baptize the 
children of the believing parents at the morning service, 
when one of the audience stated that he desired his child 
baptized, but, living several miles in the country, it was 
not convenient to bring the child and mother to the church. 
Whereupon, Dr. Richardson made an appointment to go 
in the afternoon to the home of the parents in the country 
for the purpose. Upon arriving there, he found that the 
community had been notified and quite a number had - 
gathered to witness this ceremony. ‘Taking advantage of 
the occasion, he expounded the Abrahamic Covenant, its 
provision for the children, its perpetuity in the Church 
through the ordinance of baptism, and proceeded to bap- 
tize the child. Somewhat to the surprise of the impromptu 
audience, a gentleman remarked: “Dr. Richardson, that 
is all news to me. I never heard before of the Abra- 
hamic Covenant. If my wife will consent, I would like 
to have my child baptized.” Ascertaining that the wife 
interposed no objection, and that they were professing 
Christians, Dr. Richardson laid on them the obligation to 
train the child in the principles of the Christian religion, 
and dedicated it to God in baptism. To his amazement, 
at the close, he learned that the father was a “Disciple” 
and the mother a Baptist! 


In a frontier town, a young evangelist was conducting 
special services, and announced that his purpose was to 
organize a church. Anxious to promote any enterprise 
which might contribute to the development of their town,» 
imagine the embarrassment of the young man when the 


The Romance of Home Missions 31 


whole town proposed to join the church—bar-keepers in- 
cluded. Explaining that he could receive only those who 
professed conversion and would covenant together to un- 
dertake the obligation of church membership, he organ- 
ized with twenty-three members. Later, the minister who 
dedicated the building, stated in the religious press that it 
was the first and only church building within a radius of 
one hundred miles in all directions. It was seemingly a 
feeble light shining alone away out on the plains, but it 
is still shining, although its building has been recently 
wrecked by a cyclone; and its rays now reach around the 
globe, for one of its members is supporting a Foreign 
Missionary ten thousand miles distant. 


The Frontier Presbytery 


The last illustration is in the heart of El Paso Presby- 
tery, whose spiritual destitution and appealing needs are 
eloquently portrayed by Rev. W. M. Fairley, one of the 
pioneer heroes of the West, who not only laid founda- 
tions, but stayed on the job long enough to reap mag- 
nificent spiritual harvests: 

“This Presbytery is one of the youngest historically, 
largest geographically, and smallest numerically, in Texas 
The City of El Paso is about 900 miles from Texarkana. 
As you come West over the Texas and Pacific Railroad, 
you will pass through the exceedingly rich country around 
Dallas, Fort Worth, and Weatherford, and the oil fields 
of Ranger, and then the stops get farther and farther 
apart; the trees get smaller and smaller, the rainfall less 
and less. You can see farther and see less the farther 
you go. Farming gives out completely. Ranches, dotted 
with windmills and lonely looking cows, are about all 


32 The Romance of Home Missions 


you see. The last 400 miles of your trip will be in El 
Paso Presbytery. There are very few country people here, 





Incoming multitudes 


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The Romance of Home Missions a0 


no rural problems or outlying districts. With rare excep- 
tions, the people live along the railroad, in small villages 
or towns, varying in.population from 100 to 4,000, with 
their ranches back on the plains. Some of the counties 
have not even a county seat. The trains supply some 
of these towns with drinking water. Some are progres- 
sive and made up of well-to-do cattlemen. 


“The Presbytery takes its name from the City or El 
Paso, where the writer is located. Eli Paso, with a popu- 
lation of 83,838, is situated on the border of the Presby- 
tery, on the border of the Synod, on the border of the 
General Assembly, and on the border of the United 
States. It has increased 11314 in the last ten years. 
Every incoming train adds to its population—the trains 
do not come tast enough, they are fording the Rio Grande. 
El Paso is the key to Mexico, the distributing point for 
the great Southwest between Fort Worth, San Antonio 
and Los Angeles,.in the heart of the irrigated, mining 
and cattle country. It is the fifth city in size in the great- 
est State in the Union, a cosmopolitan metropolis, where 
the problems of America are being made and solved. 
City Missions is the greatest question before the Church 
today, for in the city the people are assembling, and there 
the Devil is at work. Would the opening up of another 
church, or six churches, be wise or judicious in the midst 
of thousands of people who are unchurched? We have 
finished one mission at a cost of $5,500. Another branch 
church, with liberal ail from the Home Mission Com- 
mittee, is being constructed, and an additional pastor is 
now at work. But even with this, the fields are wliite to 
the harvest, we have no barns and the laborers are few. 


34 The Romance of Home Missions 


“Our Committee of Home Missions should be the 
agency. through which every member of our beloved 
Church should reach with a helping hand the needy places ; 
it should be a means through which the strong should 
bear the burdens of the weak, a distributor of power, an 
equalizer of burdens, a trusted disburser of your funds. 
To this Committee, all the needy fields go and utter their 
Macedonian cry. Through this Committee, the whole 
Church should function and fill up that which is lacking.” 


The Frontier Synod 


During the last half of the Nineteenth Century, the 
Home Mission work in the present State of Oklahoma was 
confined exclusively to that section which was known as 
Indian Territory, and was conducted almost entirely for 
the Indians. In 1901, the beginning of the twentieth 
century, the Home Mission Committee had never crossed 
the dividing line into the section known as Oklahoma 
Territory. 


The Assembly at Little Rock, Ark., the day the present 
Secretary was elected, passed the following resolution, 
May 23,1901: “That Oklahoma be included in our Home. 
Mission field, and that the Executive Committee be direct- 
ed to make such investigation as will enable it to under- 
take the work intelligently in that territory.” This simple 
resolution inaugurated the forward movement that caused 
the Church to hear so much of Oklahoma twenty years 
ago, and eventually resulted in the birth of the fourteenth 
Synod of the General Assembly. 


At that time there existed only the small Indian Pres- 
bytery, connected with the Synod of Texas, which con- 


The Romance of Home Missions ‘he 


tained eight ministers and twenty-two churches, only 
one minister of the number serving white churches— 
three in all, with a communicant roll of less than 200. 
Several ministers, added later, served but a few months, 
yet one, Erskine Brantly, D. D., has remained to the pres- 
ent and done noble work in an obscure place, without any 
proper recognition by the Church of his faithful and ef- 
ficient service; but “his record is on high.” 


The following incident explains the origin of the church 
at Antlers, where Dr. Brantly has rendered such signal 
service and built up a strong, influential church, building 
on no other man’s foundation: 

Pihis fitst visit to*the Territory, the Secretary set 
foot on its soil for the first time as he left the train at 
Kosoma. While waiting for the Indian boy to harness 
his team and take him to Indian Presbytery, he entered 
into conversation with a little white boy, twelve years old, 
standing by, inquiring: “Are there any churches in this 
town?” 


EON G.ASir. 

“Are there no preachers who hold service here?” 
“No, sir; there have been none here in several months.” 
‘Are there no Christian people here?” 


“Yes; my father is a Baptist, and my mother a Meth- 
odist.”’ 
“What are you going to be?” 


“Well, I think I will be a Catholic.” 


Much perplexed, and somewhat annoyed by this reply, 
the Secretary repeated the conversation upon arrival at 
the Indian Presbytery, and learned this explanation: 
About twelve miles below Kosoma, on the railroad, is the 


36 The Romance of Home Missions 


town of Antlers, containing twelve hundred people. where 
a gentleman a few years ago built a chapel and proffered 
it to the Presbyterian Church, whilst his wife and daugh- 
ters proposed to enter its fold. Becoming offended, be- 
cause the Presbyterian minister did not return in a rea- 
sonable time, and seemed slow about taking up the work, 
he gave the chapel to the Catholics, and his wife ard 
daughters went with it. The priest built up a good church 
and established a parochial school. Protestants were com- 
pelled to patronize a Catholic school, or lose for their 
children the advantage of an education. 


The Secretary sent an evangelist to Antlers, and or- 
ganized a Presbyterian Church of a dozen members. 
During the first summer, they built a school-house and a 
Presbyterian Church costing $900. This Mission School 
opened its doors in September and enrolled ninety scholars 
the first week, and the church is now self-supporting. 
This is an illustration of the many open doors inviting 
the Presbyterian Church to enter that rapidly developing — 
section. 


Advance Movement 


Up to this time, two years after the Assembly had in- 
structed the Executive Committee to enter Oklahoma Ter- 
ritory, nothing whatever had been done in the way of ad- — 
vancing into unoccupied territory. The forward move- 
ment was inaugurated by the Woman’s Missionary So- 
ciety of the Central Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Ga., 
when it offered to pay half the salary of a Missionary for 
Oklahoma Territory. Taking advantage of this offer. 
Rev. H. S. Davidson, of Bowie, Texas, was employed 
for half his time, and was assigned to the Southern part 


The Romance of Home Missions oF) 


of Oklahoma Territory, in a great area where. no repre- 
sentative of our Church was at work. He organized the 
church at Mangum with seventeen members, which soon 
after called him as pastor, where he served several years 
and built up a good church, and where the Executive 
Committee erected its first building in Oklahoma Terri- 
tory. Mangum Church is now self-supporting—and so 
are many others organized since in that same general sec- 
tion. 

The work for white communities and growing towns 
had now so far advanced that it was thought best to or- 
ganize a white Presbytery, which was accordingly done; 
and it held its first meeting at Durant in April, 1903, 
taking the name of Durant Presbytery, and was composed 
of the following eight members: Erskine Brantly, H. S. 
Davidson, W. P. Dickey, R. F. Kirkpatrick, W. S. Lacy, 
R. E. Telford, J. A. Williams, and R. P. Walker. Its 
first act was to invite “Rev. S. L. Morris, Secretary, to 
sit as a corresponding member.” It then went into “a 
Committee of the whole” to consider plans, methods and 
means. Composed of young men with but little experi- 
ence in parliamentary terms, when a motion was made 
“that the Committee rise,” they took it literally, and every 
man promptly sprang to his feet! Doubtless, they will 
forgive the writer for putting on record this evidence of 
their inexperience, but this is not to their discredit, for not 
only did every man of them make good, but they laid 
deep and broad the foundations of their denomination in 
that great State. 


Home Mission Secretary Pioneering 
As an illustration of the character of work done at this 
period, the writer, being compelled to spend a day in Coal- 


38 The Romance of Home Missions 


gate between trains, took advantage of the opportunity 
to canvass for Presbyterians. Going from store to store, 
inquiring for Presbyterians, at last he was directed to a 
Scotchman one mile from the center of town. Upon 
calling on and claiming this long-sought Presbyterian, 
imagine his astonishment on being told: “Somebody has 
played a practical joke on you. I have not been in a 
church in twenty years!” Yet, here in Coalgate soon 
after, Rev. W. T. Matthews held a meeting, organized a 
church with twenty-nine members, and placed Rev. E. 
H. Moseley in charge. He remained ten years and built 
up a strong Church, which has entertained the Synod. It 
shows the benefit of sticking to the job. Not a man who 
stayed by the work a sufficient time has been a failure. 
One minister, since gone to his eternal reward, W. S. 
Lee, had his manse stolen one day while he was making 
a pastoral call, and it has never been heard from since— 
not noted for its intrinsic value, but it was the best and 
only home he possessed. Evidently not a spacious man- 
sion, but the author once enjoyed the hospitality of its 
former owner. 


The next advance step was a division of Durant Pres- 
bytery, by which all ministers and churches in Oklahoma 
Territory were set off into a new Presbytery, which took 
the name of Mangum in honor of the first church which 
had been organized in that Territory. It now contains 
12 ministers, 20 churches, 1,700 membership which gave 
last year $31,049 for self-support and benevolences. The 
entire Presbytery was the outcome of the aid given by 
the Missionary Society of the Central Church, Atlanta. 
Was there ever an investment of Missionary funds that 


The Romance of Home Missions 34 


yielded greater dividends’ The business world is chal 
lenged to show better results from equal amount involved. 


Oklahoma Synod Organized 


Having now three Presbyteries, the time had come tor 
a Synod, which was accordingly created in 1908, and took 
its place on the roll of the Assembly in 1909, with thirty- 
four ministers and seventy-two churches, being just one 
year younger than the State, which was admitted to the 
Union in 1907. 

The opening sermon was preached by the veteran Mis- 
sionary, Rev. W. J. B. Lloyd, hoary-headed and feeble, 
who for eight years, from 1870 to 1878, was a Foreign 
Missionary to the Indians, and had been for the past 
thirty a faithful Home Missionary to the same people. 
All hearts were touched as he described his ordination 
thirty-eight years before by three Missionaries,one of them 
dying at the time he laid hands on the head of his succes- 
sor; and tears moistened many eyes as he graphically told 
in husky voice of his long, fatiguing horse-back rides, 
which required several days to go from one appointment 
to the next, and sleeping in his blanket by night on the 
lonely prairie. 


Several exceedingly unique features occurred at this 
first meeting. Suddenly, on the second day, without 
a moment’s warning, a couple walked down the aisle 
and asked for “the services of a minister.’ Rev. Jno. 
A. Willams, local pastor, not the least surprised man 
present, was equal to the occasion, and performed the 
ceremony as composedly as if it had been by appointment. 
The parties then used the Clerk’s table to sign the certifi- 


40 The Romance of Home Missions 


cates, and the groom promptly handed over his fee pub- 
licly, with a whole Synod as witnesses. It was the coolest 
affair on record, and the happy pair went on their way re- 
joicing, while the Synod, doubtless, prayed that the future 
historian of the romance might truthfully add as the se- 
quel, ‘““They lived together happily ever after.” 


The second surprise came the next day, at the closing 
session. The Moderator of Durant Presbytery arose and 
requested Synod to suspend its business for a few mo- 
ments to allow Durant Presbytery to hold a meeting im- 
mediately in the presence of the Synod. Men fairly held 
their breath, and asked in the silent chambers of their 
souls, “What next?” Once more Pastor Williams of- 
ficiated. Prof. E. Hotchkin, President of Durant Col- 
lege, an elder in the Durant Church, took his place in 
front of the pulpit, and his pastor proceeded formally and 
solemnly, by order of the Presbytery, to license him to 
preach the everlasting gospel. tee 


So the first meeting passed into history, and the young 
Synod entered upon a career of rapid development and 
great usefulness in the extension of the Kingdom of 
Christ throughout the West and “unto the uttermost part 
of the earth.” 


Expanding Frontiers 


The frontier expands constantly into ever-widening 
areas with new significance at each revolution of the kalei- 
doscope of changing conditions. The term now includes 
three separate types. There is the frontier of the West. 
to which must be added the frontier of rural life and the» 
frontier of the overcrowded city, in the suburbs as well 


The Romance of Home Missions 41 


as in the slum districts. This inquiry, however, is deal- 
ing exclusively with frontier as synonymous with terri- 
torial expansion. Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas 
and New Mexico, instead of being fully occupied, are con- 
stantly opening new areas of need and of opportunity as 
the advance of population, of railroads and of new busi- 
ness enterprises develops new sections of recently un- 
occupied territory. 


The Western frontier once consisted chiefly of new 
towns and community centers, peopled by our emigrating 
sons and daughters, who must be cared for by their 
spiritual mother. Then came the opening up of great cat- 
tle ranches for agricultural purposes, the introduction of 
“dry farming” and the building of great irrigation plants, 
which quadrupled land values and multiplied enormously 
populations. Now the oil fields are duplicating on still 
larger scale the needs and opportunities. Some town in 
Texas (Ranger, for example) will be transformed over- 
night from a village of 500 to a city of 20,000, with no 
accommodations for the incoming tides except tents, and 
no provision whatever for their spiritual interests. In 
such environments, human nature degenerates, vice 
abounds, and the Church is helpless by reason of lack of 
men and means to handle the situation. The Church, as 
a denomination, is too occupied with local problems every- 
where, and too far removed from these exciting scenes of 
business adventure and of moral conflicts, to understand 
and appreciate the situation. It is a repetition of lost op- 
portunities: “As thy servant was busy here and there, 
it was gone’; while these appealing fields of need might 
justly take up the lamentation: “The harvest is past, the 
summer is ended, and we are not saved.” 


42 The Romance of Home Missions 


Arkansas 


From the viewpoint of the Presbyterian Church, U. S.. 
Arkansas is in the West, but geographically it 1s near to 
the center of the Continent and in the very heart of the 
great Mississippi Valley. In area, it covers 52,525 square 
miles, and has a population of 2,000,000. It is cleft. with 
great rivers, whose bottom lands are as fertile as the delta 
of the Mississippi. It 1s crossed by the Ozark Mountains 
in some instances reaching an elevation of nearly 2,500 
feet. This gives it every variety of climate, as well as 
soil, making it adaptable for producing the most diversi- 
fied crops, but especialiy one of the finest fruit sections 
of the South. | 

The typical “Arkansas traveler” is now largely a mem- 
ory of the oldest inhabitant. It is blessed today with 
riches, appliances of modern civilization, and cultured 
people. It contains 112 churches of our faith and order, 
with 12,716 communicants, which have made’ commend- 
able progress, but are an insignificant part comparatively — 
of the religious forces needed for Christianizing this splen- 
did Commonwealth. It is true, there are churches of 
other Presbyterian bodies, but perhaps not as many as 
15 such are fully self-supporting. It is a great field for 
Home Mission effort. Its churches are coming to self- 
support, and reported last year for Foreign Missions a 
total of $39,656, and to the various phases of Home Mis- 
sions $31,351, besides generous gifts to other forms of 
benevolences. 


Louisiana 


In area, population, fertility, strength of Presbyterian 
ism, and contributions to the benevolences of the Church, 


The Romance of Home Missions 43 


Louisiana is almost an exact duplicate of Arkansas. The 
religious status in this State is, however, greatly compli- 
cated by the strength and activity of Roman Catholicism 
and a large admixture of foreign-speaking people. Louis- 
iana is the only State within the bounds of our Assembly 
where this one Church outnumbers all Protestant bodies 
combined. It contains several whole parishes, without 
a Protestant organization or Missionary. New Orleans 
alone contains about 200,000 papists, and the Presbyterian 
Church, the strongest Protestant body in the city, has less 
than 5,000. From the viewpoint of need, complex situa- 
‘tion and difficulties, nothing in our bounds exceeds it as 
a field for Home Mission operations. 


Texas 


In speaking of the “Empire State of the South,” it is 
scarcely necessary to name Texas. It has no rival claim- 
ant in area, population, diversity of climate or crops. Its 
coal fields, oil and gas lands, untouched forests, cattle 
ranches, uncultivated virgin soil, vegetable and citrus- 
fruit industries, extent of railroad mileage and unde- 
veloped resources—all conspire to place it in a class by 
itself, without any risk of its claims being disputed. Its 
population is nearing perhaps 5,000,000, and it is capable 
of supporting 100,000,000. Its present population is not 
only a conglomerate of all the States in the Union, but 
it has a rapidly increasing foreign element, containing a 
half-million Mexicans alone, in addition to dozens of other 
nationalities. If its wealth were in the hands of our 
Church, now numbering only 43,108, it would need no 
outside aid to handle its religious problems; but its mil- 
lionaires need converting as greatly as its impecunious. 





44 The Romance of Home Missions 


Its growing wealth does not exceed the riches of its op- 
portunities, nor counter-balance its poverty of compara- 
tive inadequate spiritual resources. Texas, like a great 
revolving kaleidoscope, changes its aspect and combina- 
tions with every rotation of time and movement. The 
changing scenery of a half-century ago revealed limitless 
plains, innocent of plow or grain, covered with herds of 
cattle, while the wild beast and the adventurous cowboy 
fought for supremacy. Then the picture changed rapidly 
as locomotives swept across the plains, leaving towns and. 
villages in their wake, and in the field of vision farms ap- 
peared, dotting the prairie; and wild nature fled before the 
face of advancing civilization. It now became a race be- 
tween the Church, with its Home Mission forces, and 
paganism, with its ungodly ideals, as to which would per- 
manently organize and consolidate the territory. It was 
originally “no man’s land.” It has since been frequently 
“any man’s land.” The whirling kaleidoscope moves more 
rapidly today, and we can scarcely fix one picture in men- 
tal vision before others displace it ; and in the maze, cities, 
oil wells and derricks mix inextricably. The struggle for 
possession is still an unsettled question. 


For fifty years, Texas has been the synonym of Home 
Missions, and its marvelous development will justify its 
demands on the whole Church for perhaps another half- 
century. It is a conspicuous advertisement of Assembly’s 
Home Missions—its great churches being the product of 
Home Mission investment. Under the fostering care and 
promotion of the Executive Committee, Mission fields are 
constantly coming to self-support, and new opportunities 
inviting attention. 


The Romance of Home Missions 45 


Oklahoma 


Like Minerva, which sprang full-fledged from the brain 
of Jupiter—according to Grecian mythology—Oklahoma 
came into being, not by the usual slow process of state- 
making, but a full-grown Commonwealth of a million 
people. Having a reputation to sustain, Oklahoma feels 
constrained to do large things. Its output in oil during 
1922 was 149,551,429 barrels, surpassing California, its 
nearest competitor, by 10,000,000 barrels, and the great 
State of Texas by 40,000,000. She produces more broom 
corn than all the other States combined, and is surpassed 
in sorghum by only two others, and stands sixth in win- 
ter wheat and seventh in cotton. It is the boast of its 
people that if a Chinese wall surrounded and separated 
it from the rest of the world, it could live within itself 
and suffer no inconvenience. 


Its great material prosperity is most effectually offset 
by its spiritual poverty. Not only is its church member- 
ship the smallest in proportion of any State, but it con- 
tains perhaps more whose membership has lapsed and 
who, like Demas, have forsaken the Church, “having loved 
this present world,” swept into the current of commercial- 
ism “which drowns men’s souls in perdition.”’ The situa- 
_ tion is further complicated by the State being “the happy 
hunting ground” for all the “isms” discredited elsewhere 
and all the “freak sects” everywhere. 


If need and opportunity were synonymous, this would 
constitute Oklahoma the greatest Mission field within our 
bounds. In point of attack, Assembly’s Home Missions 
is the whole force, and must furnish all the sinews of war 
in the campaign for righteousness. Handicapped by in- 


46 The Romance of Home Missions 


conceivable limitations and hindered by “many adver- 
saries,’ our Home Missionaries have done a marvelous 
work, which entitles them to the sympathy rather than the 
inconsiderate criticisms of many who cannot understand 
their environments nor appreciate their sacrifices. In 
spite of insuperable obstacles, Oklahoma seldom fails to 
lead all other Synods in percentage of additions on pro- 
fession; and more of its churches came to self-support 
last year, in proportion, than in any other state. 


New Mexico 


New Mexico is part of the Territory, ceded by Mexico 
to the United States in the Treaty of 1848, and an area _ 
larger than all of New England and New York com- 
bined. It shares with Florida the honor of being the 
oldest country settled in the United States, dating back 
within forty years of the discovery of America by Co- 
lumbus. The oldest house in the United States is said to 
be located in Santa Fe, the capital and second oldest city 
in America. The writer, a few years ago, in studying 
the comparative religious statistics of the census of 1890, 
was amazed to find that New Mexico stood at the very 
head of the list of states in having the largest church ~ 
membership in proportion to population. The explana- 
tion lies in the fact that the whole country is nominally 
Roman Catholic. It 1s really a foreign land in the United 
States, and differs very little from Mexico itself, contain- 
ing, together with Texas, most of the Mexicans in the 
United States. It is the home, likewise, of the Pueblo In- 
dians, 8,000 in number, a quiet, peaceable people, whose 
religion is a mixture of Catholicism and paganism, 


The Romance of Home Missions 47 


New Mexico is still, for our Church, “the regions be- 
yond.” It has been occupied for us only by the frontier 
Presbyteries of Texas, reaching across the border and or- 
ganizing an occasional isolated church. It has towns and 
sections unoccupied ; but from lack of men and means, we 
have been compelled to halt near its boundary and await 
the orders of the Church to a forward movement into its 
virgin soil. 


Increasing Frontiers 


The Chicago Tribune speaks of “The return of the 
frontier’—from circumference back to center. It is not 
so much an expansion of territory as an expansion of 
frontier conditions. 


The West no longer has a monopoly of pioneer con- 
ditions. One thousand miles from Texas, a frontier Pres- 
bytery of the East may serve as typical of conditions as 
imperative and as appealing as anything beyond the Miss- 
issippl. | 

Possibly the following report of a Home Mission Chair- 
man can be duplicated in many Synods of the Church: 
“Presbytery includes ten whole counties and parts of four 
others. In these fourteen counties are twenty-seven Pres- 
byterian Churches. Sixteen of them are in one county, 
eleven in five other counties. Eight counties—more than 
half, with no church! Only three self-supporting groups, 
and only one church able to have a pastor for all his time. 
All of the self-supporting groups are in one county—noc 
a self-supporting church or group in the other thirteen 
counties. Amount paid by them for benevolent causes, 
$13,000; on pastors’ salaries, $9,713. Amount of Home 
Mission aid needed to supply these Churches in supple- 


48 The Romance of Home Missions 


menting salaries, $7,200. These counties are rich in oli, 
coal, gas, timber, grazing and agricultural lands, and sup- 
plied with railroads. It seems there could scarcely be a 
Presbytery in the Assembly with greater needs, or that 
gives promise of greater results. These counties are not 
overchurched with any denomination.” 


It is perfectly natural that this Chairman should reckon 
his as the neediest of all, knowing better the facts in his 
case. There are, however, dozens of other Chairmen who 
can tell as pathetic tales of need. And yet there are men 
circulating reports of “overchurching,’”’ who insist that our 
country is adequately evangelized. Statistics employed to 
substantiate the hypothesis that our country is abundantly — 
supplied with ministers and churches are ordinarily mis- — 
leading. By padding the ministerial list to include Mor- 
mon elders, Christian Science readers, Roman Catholic 
priests, and those who serve small, “freak” Churches of 
insignificant numbers, it can be shown that:there is a 
minister to every 560 people. If, however, the list is lim- 
ited to the evangelical forces, the number of people to 
each minister would enlarge far beyond his ability to 
serve them adequately. The same man cannot minister 
to a number beyond his ability, though he were alone in 
the midst of a million of unreached souls. 


If the history of our Church could be fully written, it 
would reveal a record of struggle and achievement, ot 
small beginnings, of triumphant faith and of marvelous 
development. Dr. John Dixon, Secretary of Home Mis- 
sions of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., asserts: “Most 
of the largest Churches in the country were once Home 
' Mission Churches, from the First Church of New York’ 
to the First Church of Seattle. In eight of the Western 


The Romance of Home Missions 49 


States, every one of the Presbyterian Churches has at 
some time in its history been aided by the Board of Home 
Missions. It is within the truth to say that fully 9,000 
of our 10,000 or more Churches began their career, or 
were helped towards self-support, by the Board of Home 
Missions.” This testimony would be equally true of our 
own Church, and perhaps of all others. 


The call of the frontier to the Church is as insistent 
as ever, and the cry is heard over wider areas. The need 
is still great. The opportunities are insatiable. The obli- 
gation shows no sign of relaxing its constraint. Okla- 
homa calls to Georgia, and Texas stretches its hands to 
the Carolinas. New Mexico is almost Foreign Mission 
territory. The West is not making selfish demands upon 
the Church. It. is continually reaching self-support, and 
then expanding its frontier, and at the same time is yield- 
ing dividends on investments and repaying the principal 
by its increasing gifts to all the benevolent operations of 
the Church. As children eventually surpass their parents 
in strength and attainments, so the time will come when 
the strength of the Church will show itself in the great 
empire of the West. 


A PRAYER OF THE HILL COUNTRY 


Lift me, O Lord, above the level plain, 

Beyond the cities where life throbs and thrills, 
And in the cool airs let my spirit gain 

The stable strength and courage of Thy hills. 


They are Thy secret dwelling places, Lord! 
Like Thy majestic prophets, old and hear, 
They stand assembled in divine accord, 
Thy sign of ’stablished power for evermore. 


Here peace finds refuge from ignoble wars, 
And faith, triumphant, builds in snow and rime, 
Hear the broad highways of the greater stars, 
Above the tide-line of the seas of time. 


Lead me yet farther, Lord, to peaks more clear, 
Until the clouds like shining meadows lie, 

Where through the deeps of silence I may hear 
The thunder of thy legions marching by. 


—MeEREDITH NICHOLSON, 


50 


Chapter Three 


The 
ROMANCE of the HILLS 


The Appalachian Mountains, extending parallel with 
the Atlantic Coast from Pennsylvania to Georgia, a dis- 
tance of 500 miles, and spreading out in places 300 miles 
in width, interrupts and limits the arable land, which dis- 
tinguishes this section of the South, but furnishes ample 
compensation by reason of its rich mineral resources 
which add immensely to the wealth of the country. The 
Ozarks, beyond the Mississippi are the counterpart of 
the Appalachians, and together the two form the most im- 
portant ranges of America—not excepting the Rockies. 


The population of the Appalachian section is given as 
5,330,511—of which 88 per cent is white. One million 
and a quarter live in towns and cities of 1,000 or more. 
The remaining four million are divided into two groups, 
the larger being prosperous rural folks, many enjoying 
the advantage of education. The New York Times pub- 
lished some time ago the statement that there “were 3,- 
000,000 lost to the modern world wearing the patterns of 
the sixteenth century who need to be reclaimed.” By 
some, this is regarded as an overestimate. A Bishop of 
the Methodist Church in Tennessee fixes the number of 
cabin people living in real neglect at 250,000. Even this 
lowest estimate constitutes an indictment of the Christi- 
anity of America. | 


~ 


5} 


52 The Romance of Home Missions 


The Romance of Environment 


In population, the mountain section outnumbers any 
other neglected class in our bounds. In type, it presents 
the problems of isolation, of illiteracy and of irreligion. 
In occupation, its inhabitants live largely by fishing, hunt- 
ing and farming on such small scale as to confine their 
products to vegetables, fruits and corn only in sufficient 
quantities for their frugal meals. In characteristics, its 
people are generous-hearted, though somewhat suspicious 
of strangers, excitable in temper, leading often to deadly . 
feuds handed down from father to son through succeed- 
ing generations, proud of their physical prowess and of 
their family traditions. Contrary to misrepresentation, 
they are not degenerates, but have good, red blood in their 
veins, and if given a chance and their manhood is awaken- 
ed, they compete* successfully with any class for attain- 
ments in the sphere of education or in the realm of busi- 
ness. The poverty of their lands has made them depend- 
ent on a native spiritual leadership of a voluntary char- 
acter that has taught them to despise and distrust a paid 
ministry and bound them in the shallows of a circum- 
scribed life and religious experience. 

Their isolated situation—shut in by well-nigh inacces- 
sible mountain ranges and shut out from the world’s ac- 
tivities and a participation in the privileges of modern 
civilization—accounts for the fact that they have been 
passed by in the onward march of humanity; but it is dif- 
ficult to understand the related fact of the widespread 
indifference to their wretched circumstances and sub- 
merged life. No State government has provided the funds 
for their education, and their extreme poverty removes 
them from its privileges. Their nearness to us deprives 


Le a | 
o>) 


The Romance of Home Missions 


their case of romance, but our kinship to them should 
entail upon us a double obligation of “providing for our 
own,” if we are to escape the indictment of having “de- 
nied the faith” and being “worse than an infidel.” 


Romance of Locality 


The great events of Scripture are singularly associated 
with mountains. After the flood, the ark rested on Mount 
Ararat; the law was given on Mount Sinai; Moses viewed 
the Promised Land from Mount Nebo, and was buried 
somewhere on its lonely heights; the blessings and curses 
were pronounced from Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. 
The greatest of sermons was preached on a mountain; 
the Transfiguration, Crucifixion, and Ascension were on 
mountains. If an attempt were made to enumerate the 
Biblical events which took place on mountains, the entire 
space would be filled, leaving no room for aught else. 


The same result would follow if we attempted to sketch 
by name the historic events occurring among mountains. 
The mountains have been the refuge of God’s people in 
times of persecution in all ages, since David sang, “Flee 
as a bird to your mountain’; and Jesus advised the Dis- 
ciples, “Flee to the mountains.”’ The Waldenses escaped 
the pursuing vengeance of Rome by hiding in their in- 
accessible fastnesses. The Covenanters of Scotland found 
more safety in their mountain retreats than in weapons 
of powerful friends. It may be that the mountains in this 
way have providentially protected the truth of God, and 
saved it from extinction. . Time would fail to narrate the 
atmospheric influence of the mountains upon health, rain- 
fall, etc. That would tax the powers of a scientist. 


54 The Romance of Home Missions 


Many people are familiar with the story of the moun- 
taineer who propped open the door of his hut with a rock, 
in ignorance of its intrinsic value, till some passing visitor 
called attention to its worth as a nugget of pure gold. And 
so the discovery was made of a deposit of rich minerals 
on his land, and the owner suddenly realized that instead 
of poverty he was the possessor of immense wealth. This 
story is characteristic of the mountains. Many feet have 
trodden rugged mountain-paths, whose owners were in 
utter ignorance of the hidden riches concealed beneath the 
surface. 


The mountains are the reserve forces of Nature. For 
ages, their granite formations have awaited human need, 
and then yielded the finest building material for our grow- 
ing cities. In,their deep mines are stored the coal which 
warms our homes, or is transmuted into power which 
turns our machinery. In other instances, these mountains, 
with rough exterior, conceal riches of gold, silver, and 
gems of rare beauty and fabulous value. 


The greatest riches of the mountains, however, are not 
their precious metals and exquisite gems. If “the dark, 
unfathomed caves of ocean bear full many a gem of purest 
ray serene,” and if these mountain caverns hide their un- 
told wealth, they bear jewels of still greater value to the 
world. Their real wealth is their sons and daughters. 
These mountain boys and girls must be discovered by some 
“Prospector” in search of diadems for the Kingdom of 
Heaven. These “diadems in the rough” must be polished 
by Mission School and Church; and frequently one great 
“find” in a single individual is worth all the means ex- 
pended in that direction by philanthropy or Christianity. 


tn 
ty 


The Romance of Home Missions 


The Romance of Ancestry 


President Frost, of Berea College, in Kentucky, is cred- 
ited with the statement that the ‘“‘mountains are the back- 
yards of seven States.” The area defined as the “South- 
ern Highlands” contains, according to different authorities 
between one and two hundred counties in the States cen- 
tering in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and the 
Virginias. Many of them are the finest blood of America, 
virile, refined and have made conspicuous contributions 
to the wealth, welfare, achievements and sturdy character — 
of the Nation. 


John Temple Graves pays eloquent tribute to their 
illustrious ancestry: ‘They are of the same race and the 
same general origin as ourselves. They are the de- 
scendants of the men and women who came over in the 
pioneer ships of the Pilgrims and Cavaliers, who came 
to the southern colonies under the early governors and 
trustees. Some of them are of the stern blood of the Puri- 
tans who fought under Cromwell against Rupert and 
Charles. Some of them date back to the impoverished 
gentry who followed Oglethorpe to the new debtors’ 
haven across the western seas; some of them sprang 
from the political prisoners and captives and law-breakers. 
who landed on the Virginia sea coast under Berkeley 
and Spottswood. And some of them were of that Scotch- 
Irish stock which fled from religious persecution to this 
land of liberty. 


“There is the making of a great people in these 
mountain folks. The blood of the dominant white race 
is in them, waiting only to be roused and led. The cen- 
tury of wild untraining, in which they have lived has 


56 The Romance of Home Missions 


laid the foundation of a great awakening. Ernest Renan 
thanked God for the good blood of the common people — 
in his veins, and declared that the strength of his brain 
and his nerves was due to the centuries in which the 
minds of his ancestors had lain fallow and undisturbed. 


“The call of the mountains should ring in the ears of 
all our modern philanthropists. They are the only great 
class in all our country that have lived unheeded and 
unhelped in an age that has thought and moved and done 
so much.” 


In the same strain is the tribute of Rev. E. W. Mc- 
Corkle, whose experience and service entitle him to speak 
for them beyond that of most men: 


“This is the land of our kith and kin, crowded with 
boys of the Lincoln, Boone and Jackson type.. Though 
dragged down in their long conflict with dirt and the 
devil, they are magnificent in their ruins. Their history 
is known to all, how they entered this smiling land 
through the doors at Philadelphia and Charleston. NHar- 
ried by the British, they took to the rocks and passes 
beyond. They won the West, and peopled that vast 
empire between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi. 
Their children, left stranded in the eddies and coves of 
the mountains, have remained isolated and insulated to 
this day—the purest Anglo-Saxon stock of the American 
continent. Their fathers were at King’s Mountain and 
New Orleans. They constituted the insurmountable bar- 
rier against which the fierce waves of furious savagery 
from the West dashed in vain. It was the flag of these 
mountaineers that waved in triumph above the clouds’ 
at Lookout Mountain. They constituted the undaunted 


The Romance of Home Missions 57 


remnant of that ragged and half-starved band that fol- 
lowed Stonewall Jackson and stood with heroic courage 
by the side of Lee when overwhelmed with disaster at 
Appomattox. Penned in this boundary, their children, 
until recently, have been living under conditions not un- 
like those that existed in the days of King Alfred. A 
brave and free people, hospitable and courageous, but 
dreadfully handicapped. 


“The greatest handicap is whiskey. A man named 
Joshua, who was asked if he was the man who made the 
sun stand still, replied: ‘No, but I’m the man who made 
the moonshine.’ Before he had reached his 18th year. 
one of these lads had been indicted twenty-seven times for 
violation of the revenue laws. In a Sunday-school class 
in the penitentiary, made up of these young men, six out 
of eight said drink had brought them there. In a jail 
in a mountain county visited by the writer not long since, 
were seven young men held for murder, all but one 
of whom had reached the prison portal through this same 
gateway. 


“The most horrible handicap in the past has been the 
feud. During the murderous career of seven of these 
feuds, more than 250 people have lost their lives. It has 
been handed down from parent to child. One Tom Baker 
was killed when guarded by the soldiers. On the return 
from his burial, Captain Bryan, of the 2nd Kentucky 
regiment, said to his widow: ‘Mrs. Baker, why do you 
not leave this terrible land and escape their deadly feuds: 
Move away and teach your children to forget.’ ‘Captain 
Bryan,’ said the poor mother, and she spoke evenly ana 
quietly, ‘I have twelve sons. It will be the chief aim of 
my life to bring them up to avenge their father’s death. 


58 The Romance of Home Missions 


Every night I will show them the handkerchief stained 
with their father’s blood and tell them who murdered 
His 


Rev, R. F. Campbell; D. D.j.of Asheville? N, Cc says 
“Two ministers of our church were sent to investigate the 
condition of eleven counties in this State. They left the 
railroad and penetrated the highlands, spending three 
months or more. Numbers of homes were found without 
a lamp, looking glass or a candle. Many of the people 
had never seen a town; a buggy was an object of great 
curiosity. In several of these counties there is not a 
newspaper; in many homes not a single word in print, 
not even a patent medicine almanac. They found a set-_ 
tled district of 150 square miles without a church or Sab- 
bath-school. In many homes there was not a Bible or 
Testament.” 


Religious Data 


Statistics indicate that of these mountain people 779,- 
988 are Baptists, 603,537 Methodist, 115,573 are Presby- 
terians and 4,270 Congregationalists. This Highland 
region contains about 200 schools, 117 of them having 
boarding departments with a total enrollment of 25,000 
students. The statement is made that the spiritual in- 
fluence of the schools, aside from the educational, is far 
greater than that of the churches alone. The greatest 
need today is not for colleges, which will educate the 
youth away from their people and leave the mountain 
sections poorer, by culling the more intelligent and capa- 
ble and sending them out of the mountains to enrich 
other communities, but for agricultural and industrial 


The Romance of Home Missions 59 


schools which will fit the young people tor leadership 
and life in the mountains. 


The Presbyterian Church entered this fruitful field 
many years ago but was handicapped in the lack of means 
for its successful prosecution. Taking over the pioneer 
work of the “Soul Winners’ Society,” organized by the 
lamented Dr. Guerrant, during the past ten years it has 
been developed rapidly as fast as means were available, 
until today it requires larger financial outlay than any 
other department; but it has paid splendid dividends on 
the investment. While we have scarcely touched the 
outer edges of the problem of illiteracy and religious 
destitution hidden behind vast mountain ranges, yet we 
point with pride to our growing churches, our great mis- 
sion schools and our evangelistic activities, which are 
transforming whole communities and in some instances 
influencing entire counties; and it is our purpose to es- 
tablish cordons of religious forces until they meet and 
stretch from state to state in their beneficent influences. 


From Hell Creek to Kingdom Come 


Dr. Edward O. Guerrant, the father of Mountain Mis- 
sions, made for the author a facetious list of the creeks 
in the mountains of Kentucky where his missions were 
located, most of these streams being. tributaries of the 
Kentucky River. Would any of our readers risk drinking 
water from this river which has the following sources ? 


Hell Creek, Hell for Sartin, Big Devil, Little Devil, 
War Creek, Squabble Creek, Troublesome, Quicksand, 
Bull Skin, Greasy, Meat Scaffle, Dumb Bettie, Red Bird, 
Goose Creek, Lost Creek, Canoe, Frozen Creek, Shoul- 


60 The Romance of Home Missions 


der Blade, Puncheon Camp, Snake Creek, Kingdom 
Come. | . 


The last is the scene of one of the most charming 
and popular mountain stories ever written, entitled, “The 
Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come,” by John Fox, Jr., 
author of still another story, “The Trail of the Lonesome 
Pine,” located in Big Stone Gap, Va., where “the Lewis- 
cot League’? matches in unique missions all of its 
romance. John Fox, Jr., vies with Harold Bell Wright, 
author of “The Shepherd of the Hills,” in the glamour 
of sensational mountain stories, but their inventive genius 
has created nothing more romantic than the tragedies in 
real life among the mountains and the spirit of daring. 
adventure, which has characterized some of the thrilling 
exploits of our modern heroes of faith. The Lewiscot 
League, for example, organized by the Rev. James M. 
Smith, who has invested his life in Home Missions, will 
eventually dim the lustre of the most brilliant story in 
comparison, when romantic adventure and fictitious hero- 
ism are placed side by side in striking contrast. 


Romance of Life 


The admiration and love of the author for Dr. Guer- 
rant—growing in intensity and fervor during the entire 
time of their intimate association and effective co-opera- 
tion—greviously tempt repetition and glowing account 
of the most marvelous character the State of Kentucky 
and the Presbyterian Chureh ever produced. Daniel 
Boone, pioneering among wild animals and wilder sav- 
ages, has nothing to his worthy credit which eclipses 
the daring adventures of Dr. Guerrant, pioneering “all 


The Romance of Home Missions 61 


through the mountains wild and bare’ for the sheep 
whose cry he heard out in the darkness “sick and help- 
less and ready to die,” that “up from the rocky steep” 
there might arise the “glad cry to the gate of Heaven, 
‘Rejoice for I have found my sheep.’ ” 


“The Shepherd of the Hills.” 


In the veins of Dr. Edward O. Guerrant flowed the blood 
of the Huguenots, which bequeathed to him the spirit 
of the martyrs. During the Civil War, a gallant soldier 
of the Confederacy, he crossed and recrossed the Cum- 
berland Mountains several times and found no churches. 
Having been brought up in a village of churches with 
the thought that all people this side of China were equally 
fortunate, the great religious destitution of the mountains 
impressed him. Impressed him so much, in fact, that 
after spending some years practicing medicine, he en- 
tered Union Theological Seminary at Hampden-Sidney. 
to become a minister, with the thought of devoting his life 
to preaching to the poor. | 


Called to one of the greatest churches in Kentucky he 
could not be satisfied, while the cry of human need was 
ringing in his ears from the heart of the mountains, which 
eventually made him ‘The Shepherd of the Hills” in a 
sense that Harold Bell Wright never dreamed of. 


He kept ever before the Synod their obligation to take 
care of the destitute sections of their state, and influenced 
them to inaugurate their Synodical Evangelistic Work, 
the first work of the kind ever undertaken in the Presby- 
terian Church. The Synod called Dr. Guerrant to lead 


62 The Romance of Home Missions 


the movement, and for four years he served with great 
zeal and efficiency, preaching in many places where no 
Presbyterian minister had ever preached, and where no 
church had established itself. He found in the moun- 
tains, to quote his own words, “a region as large as the 
German Empire practically without churches, Sabbath- 
schools or qualified teachers; whole counties of people 
who had never seen a church or heard a gospel sermon 
they could understand.” He conducted evangelistic ser- | 
vices and organized churches not only in the mountain 
coves where adults had never heard a gospel sermon but 
in county sites such as Jackson, Breathitt County, Ky.. 
where until his ministration no church of any denomina- 
tion existed. He organized the “Soul Winners’ Society,” 
afterward changed to the “American Inland Mission,” 
which he conducted alone without backing of church or 
patron till burdened with years and infirmities he trans 
ferred his churches, schools, colleges and missions to the 
Presbyterian Church; and his work greatly enlarged is 
now conducted by the Executive Committee of Home 
Missions, requiring an annual outlay of nearly $200,000— 
almost equaling the total missionary operations of all de- 
nominations combined for work in the Appalachian 
Mountains. 


His name is a household word in the mountains, and 
‘“‘his praise is in all the churches.”” His sudden death—lack- 
ing only a year of attaining “by reason of strength four- 
score years’’—came as a great shock to the entire church, 
which left his beloved mountaineers dazed and “dumb 
with amazement.” Rev. W. H. Woods, D. D., voiced 


The Romance of Home Missions 63 


their inarticulate thought in one of the most touching 
poems ever written: 


Hark! In the Highlands now 
‘ Wild horns are blowing 
Over each smoky ridge, 
And swift stream flowing; 
For there’s ill news abroad, 
And lone peaks listen, 
While waiting pools below 
Like fond eyes glisten; 
Listen and wait in vain— 
He will not come again— 
Guerrant has left them. 


Ye whom his shepherd-heart 
Folded and fathered, 

Now let the galax leaves 
Ripen ungathered ; 

Teach your wild streams a tone 
Of human feeling, 

And bring the balsam-balm 
For your own healing. 

Only a breaking heart 

. Could see such a friend depart— 

Guerrant has left you. 


Think not ye mourn alone— 
Never a steeple 
Where the bell tolls, may hold 
All hearkening people; 
Though to no other man 
His gifts are given, 
His is a mighty tribe 
Here and in Heaven. 
We are his comrades true, 
This is our dark hour, too— 
Guerrant has left us. 


This brief allusion to the life and work of a rare 
character, although a “twicetold tale,’ could scarcely be 
avoided without seeming discourtesy to his blessed mem- 
ory and injustice to his unmatched service. The narra- 
tive would be incomplete without some of his unique ex- 


64 The Romance of Home Missions 


periences and pathetic incidents as related in his public 
addresses. 





Three Edward O. Guerrants 
“The Shepherd of the Hills” with two of 
his grandchildren. 


Illustrations—Humorous and Pathetic 


In a distant mountain cove which he had never investi- 
gated, Dr. Guerrant made an appointment for preaching 
on a definite date and had notice circulated throughout 


The Romance of Home Missions 65 


that region. Being the first party on the ground at the 
appointed time, he saw coming a girl of seventeen ac- 
companied by a boy of twelve. Having walked bare- 
footed she first sat down and put on her shoes, and then 
this conversation took place: 

“Mister, be you the man who is going to preach 
today °” 


“Yes,” said Dr. Guerrant, “I am to preach for you.” 


“Well, I have never hearn a man preach what kin 
preach; and I have walked seven miles to hear a man who 
kin preach.” 

“What is your name?” 

“My name is Lizzie Baker.” 

“What is your father’s name?” 

“His name is Tom Jones.” 


Somewhat disconcerted and scarcely knowing what to 
say next, Dr. Guerrant ventured hesitatingly : 


“T hope the old people are married.” 


“Oh yes,” answered the girl, “they is married all right. 
but all the children likes Mam better than they do Pap, 
and they all tuck Mam’s name.” 


This occurred not in China nor in the Dark Continent 
but in one of the Sovereign States of this so-called Chris- 
tian country. In one of the evangelistic services a young 
woman came forward publicly and asked to be baptized 
and received into the Church. At the close a moun- 
taineer whispered: “Dr. Guerrant, if you could get Belle — 
Napier’s family into the Church, you would have a pretty 
good start. She has twenty-seven brothers and sisters!” 
One man took him aside for a private interview and 
asked: “Would you baptize and receive me into the 


66 The Romance of Home Missions 


Church barefooted? -I don’t have any shoes.” It is 
needless to say no prince of royal blood nor influential 
member of one of the “first families’ ever was assured - 
of warmer welcome. One of the most desperate char- 
acters of the mountains, whose hands had more than 
once been stained with blood, was at last apprehended 
and sentenced to life imprisonment. Hardened, defiant, 
sullen, many approaches had been attempted in vain. 
At length the man, who understood the human heart as, 
perhaps, few did, sat down by him with the purpose of 
finding if possible an avenue of approach and said ten- 
derly: ‘Do you love that little boy left behind in your 
home?” This touched the tenderest spot in his soul 
and with tears running down his cheeks in an agitated 
voice he said: “Dr. Guerrant, I would stand between 
that boy and.hell!”’ This opened the way for the story, 
which surpasses romance—“Like as a father pitieth his 
children.” ae 


Recently one of our missionaries in the mountains 
was invited to the birthday dinner of a man eighty-six 
years old, who was the father of twenty-four children, 
and had killed twenty-seven men! “Are these typical 
characters?’ Not, if by “typical” is meant that they 
represent most of the mountain people. Yet they are 
“types” of multitudes who, however, are not to be judged 
by the ordinary standards. They have had no advantage 
of education and but little gospel privileges or religious 
influences. There are other types; but these have souls 
with needs as great as any; and they are not beyond the 
transforming influences of the grace of God. 


The Romance of Home Missions 67 


Specimens 


The story of Jonathan Day, the boy Dr. Guerrant 
found sitting on a log in Letcher County, transformed 
into one of the greatest preachers in this country and do- 
ing work not duplicated by any, has been told and retold. 
A parallel case is the mountain boy from that same gen- 
eral section who, after graduating in one of these mis- 
sion schools, entered the university, took two classes at 
the same time and led his class, accomplishing in two 
years what ordinarily requires four. Even before grad- 
uating from the Theological Seminary he was called to 
one of the finest churches in the Presbyterian Com- 
munion, which was declined in order that he might re- 
turn and minister to his own native people. After years 
of successful service he has been called to one of our 
great city churches, where at present he serves with 
marked success. Such characters, rescued from unfor- 
tunate environment, are assets among our spiritual forces, 
which more than compensate for all the expenditures of 
finance and consecrated life, that measure the cost of the 
work. They are but specimens and firstfruits of the 
harvest which may be expected in the years to come. 


“A Nameless Hero” 


Under the above caption, Rev. R. P. Smith, D. D., of 
Asheville, N. C.—himself a hero whose thrilling experi- 
ences if written would duplicate anything in romance— 
wrote the following account, for the Home Mission 
Herald, of the type of consecrated laborers who are put- 
ting their life blood into mission service, and who are 
“sky pilots’ to the wayfaring, “prospectors” for Christ 


68 The Romance of Home Missions 


and the Church, discovering and gosto those stranded 
among the mountains: 

“While investigating conditions in our mountain terri- 
tory, the writer found a large section that had been sadly 
neglected in the way of school and church privileges. 
With some outside help, a building was soon erected and 
a minister put in charge. The school grew so rapidly 
that three teachers (the minister, his wife and his son) 
were required to do the work. 


“This family had to live some distance from the school 
building, in an adjoining cove, a rather high mountain 
being between the two places. The trail was too steep 
and long for the wife to walk, so she would ride, while 
the husband or son led the horse. These took it “turn 
about” in leading the animal, and swinging to his tail 
during the climb. Rather hard on the horse, you think, 
but he was large and strong and became an _ expert at 
his job. 


“A great work for that community was done by these 
faithtuliservants of) Christies ey... tan eee was 
the preacher, the pastor, the teacher, the lawyer (peace- 
maker), the physician, etc., for a large section. of coun- 
try. One Sabbath morning, just as he was beginning 
his preaching service, a messenger ran in with the news 
that a woman, on her way to church, had been thrown 
from a mule, breaking her arm, and that he was wanted 
immediately. He went out, set the bone, then returned 
and finished his sermon. There being no physician near, 
he often administered simple remedies for the relief of 
the suffering. 


“The field of this missionary covered a territory 
twenty-five miles long by twelve wide. He was in con- 


The Romance of Home Missions 69 


stant demand to meet the many needs, and being full 
of energy and deep sympathy, he answered every call. 
While struggling under the burden, he was stricken with 
a severe illness, and within a few days entered into rest. 
For miles and miles around, the people came from the 
coves and the sides of the mountains to attend the fun- 
eral services, and after the grave was closed and the 
family had gone, numbers stood there and wept, loath 
to leave the friend who had done so much for them. 


“When the church history of North Carolina is writ- 
ten, a page will be inscribed to the life and labors of this 
faithful Home Missionary, whose name is not now given, 
but whose great influence for good is still living in the 
lives of those whom he taught and those who heard the 
Gospel message from his lips.” 


The author recognized in this narrative one of his dear- 
est friends, Rev. Samuel W. Newell, whose gentle and 
skillful nursing, while they were students together in 
Columbia Seminary, brought him through the most dan- 
gerous illness of his life; and he gratefully pays tribute 
to his memory as one of nature’s noblemen. 


Missionary Institutions 


On a mountain stream, almost in sight of where it 
empties into the Kentucky River, two brothers, Callahan 
by name, had rival stores on opposite sides of the road. 
Jealousy and competition became so great they had al- 
ready armed themselves for the inevitable conflict, in 
which one or both brothers would shed each other’s 
blood. Dr. Guerrant bought the store of one for the 
doubla purpose of avoiding bloodshed and to secure the 


70 The Romance of Home Missions 


site for a mountain mission and school. The two women 
mission teachers served the community in every possible — 
capacity—teachers, religious instructors, nurses—even 
officiating at funerals. It was a slow work, training a 
community. The kind of work done may be judged by 
the following: The children in school were taught and 
made to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Each morning every 
child was asked to report if it said the prayer upon re- 
tiring for the night. After some days of repeated in- 
quiry, a fifteen-year-old boy suddenly surprised the 
school and teachers by asking: ‘Miss Patsy, how long 
have I got to keep this thing up?” Her reply was some- 
what disconcerting, perhaps—“All your life!’ A dozen 
years of patience, discouragement, faith and persistence 
have passed by; but behold the results: An attractive 
church building, a membership of 61, 26 being added 
last year; a commodious dormitory; and a Sabbath-school 
of two hundred—raw material for good citizenship and 
potential future resources for the Kingdom. 


On another stream, known as Puncheon Camp, not far 
from the place it empties into the Kentucky River, under 
the trees with only hewn logs for seats, a Sabbath-school 
was organized nearly twenty years ago. Nature fur- 
nishes no lovelier spot—with landscape of mountain, val- 
ley, and stream. After many vicissitudes and romantic 
experiences a frame building was erected, and it was se- 
riously called “Highland College” by the mountain peo- 
ple. It would not have passed even for a high school, 
but its usefulness was not measured by its appearance, 
its lack of equipment and its inadequate standards. The 
establishment of a post-office became a necessity, and it ° 
took the name of “Guerrant” in honor of its benefactor. 


The Romance of Home Missions 71 


Land was donated, additional acres purchased and build- 
ings increased in response to the demands of the insti- 
tution. It now has ample land, eleven buildings, includ- 
ing a hospital and a stone dormitory which cost $60,000. 
It still lacks a modern adequate school building. A con- 
servative estimate of the value of the plant would not 
fall below $100,000. The school has grown to more than 
two hundred pupils, a large number being boarders. The 
church numbers over two hundred, the majority being 
the students who were brought under its religious in- 
fluences and ultimately into church membership. For a 
number of years Mr. C. E. Graham had taken on him- 
self as his Home Mission responsibility the entire sup- 
port of the school, which has been graciously continued 
by his family since his lamented death. The church at 
Spartanburg, S. C., provides for the evangelistic feature 
of the work. The school under the faithful care of Rev. 
W. B. Guerrant—worthy of the mantle of his illustrious 
uncle—has industrial features; and the entire work, farm- 
ing, laundering, cooking, and all other necessary labor 
are done entirely by the school. It is a veritable, spiritual 
hive of activities—including preaching, Sabbath-school, 
Christian Endeavor and every phase of religious life. 
It ought to leaven the surrounding country, as these stu- 
dents return to their respective communities and in the 
years to come contribute spiritual forces reaching unto 
the ends of the earth. 


One more illustration 1s equally striking. The last en-. 
terprise undertaken by Dr. Guerrant was the establish- 
ment of Stuart Robinson School at Blackey, Ky., in 
Letcher County, which holds the record for having the 
largest percentage for unchurched people in the United 


72 The Romance of Home Missions 


f 


Seceemrentneiogans- 





Top—Rev. E. V. Tadlock, his father (Rev. A. D. Tadlock), Rev. 
and Mrs. H. J. Scott, his mother, and Misses Ervin and Johnson. 

Center—Dining-Kitchen Building, Girls’ Dormitory, Boys’ Dor- 
mitory. | 

Bottom—School Building at Stuart Robinson. ‘ 


The Romance of Home Missions 73 


States—97 per cent being connected with no church of 
any denomination, and the 3 per cent being almost ex- 
clusively Primitive Baptists opposed to missions, Sab- 
bath-schools, and all modern forms of church activity. 
The opposition to Presbyterianism as an intruder was in- 
tense and active. A plain commodious academy was 
erected, supplemented later by dormitory and teacher’s 
residence. Difficulties were encountered year after year 
that were calculated to stagger the faith of an Abraham, 
and to paralyze the energies of even a Zealot. Then 
came Rev. E. V. Tadlock, frail in body, brilliant, in in- 
tellect, of undaunted courage, of common sense and of 
limitless resources. Opposition began to melt away. The 
flood tide of opportunity rose to the highest pitch. Stu- 
dents poured in from everywhere. The writer has ad- 
dressed in a crowded auditorium students of high school 
age, and standing on the elevated Campus, could look 
down the street in two directions and see overflow schools. 
vacant stores being rented for their accommodation, til] 
441 students were overcrowding both dormitories and 
school buildings. Then came the disastrous fire which 
destroyed the dormitory and scattered the students for 
the time. The marvelous success of the institution made 
it impossible to build again on the same crowded 
campus. Twenty acres beyond the limits of the town 
were secuted, where a magnificent brick academy, mod- 
ern dormitories, president’s house and refectory with do- 
mestic science features have been erected for boarders: 
and higher classes. The plant in the town will be utilized 
for primary and intermediate grades—the entire plant 
valued at $150,000. Mr. Geo. W. Watts made its suc- 


cess possible by assuming its entire support, and since his 


74 The Romance of Home Missions 


death his wife has accepted it as her Home Mission re- 
sponsibility, greatly enlarging the amount by reason of 
its increasing needs and responsibilities. Its history is a 
thrilling romance—stranger than fiction. It has grown 
like magic and is today the second largest educational in- 
stitution in the entire Church. Its future is bounded only 
by the providence of God. 


Rev. J. K. Coit and Wife, and Nacoochee 


Nacoochee Institute was first conceived in the vision of 
Hon. J. R. Lunsden and his neighbors residing in this 
lovely valley. Rev. J. D. Blackwell submitted the propo- 
sition to the Home Mission Committee in Atlanta; and 
it was undertaken first as an experiment supplemented 
by the substantial contribution of Mr. Jno. J. Eagan. 
Rev. J. T. Wade, appointed by Athens Presbytery— 
which next became its sponsor—began laying the founda- 
tion in 1903. After four years of heroic services Mr. 
Wade resigned and for two years the work languished. 


In 1908 the trustees called Rev. John Knox Coit, of 
Bethel Presbytery, South Carolina. He came to Georgia 
and took up the work in April, while his young wife 
battled for the life of their firstborn son in the moun-- 
tains of western North Carolina. In October a telegram 
called Mr. Coit to the graveside of their only son in 
Salisbury, N. C. Distressed and sorrowing, the couple 
returned and began their work at Nacoochee Institute, 
where they have continued until the present. 


“They found property consisting of twenty-six acres of 
land, two buildings—one being the academy donated by 
the community and the other a dormitory built entirely 


cyt 


The Romance of Home Missions % 


with borrowed money—three teachers and eighty-five 
pupils. It was burdened with a debt of $7,000. Its en- 
largement began by the co-operative effort of the Home 
Mission Committee, clearing the debt, and a cottage for 
the principal erected by Mrs. S. L. Morris in memory of 
her mother. Today the institute owns, free of all en- 
cumbrance, 321 acres of land, seven semi-permanent 
buildings, and thirty small temporary buildings, the whole 
amounting in value to $70,000. There are fourteen mem- 
bers of the faculty, eight additional workers and an av- 
erage enrollment for the past ten years of 220.” 


Mr. and Mrs. Coit, eminently qualified for the task, 
have been most wonderfully blest in having all through 
the years of labor, a strong faculty of devoted, self- 
denying spirits of exceptional ability, who have labored 
because of their love for the work. Their aim has been 
to give the finest possible Christian training and educa- 
tional advantages to those who otherwise would have had 
no chance. Almost every student represents a venture 
of faith. Their joy is enhanced, looking back over twenty 
years of history in realizing that practically every stu- 
dent, who has spent as much as one year in the institution 
has been led to accept Christ as Savior. Every student. 
graduated from the high school for twenty years, is liv- 
ing today and each is filling a place of usefulness. 


A man of prominence visiting from a distant state. 
attended prayers at Nacoochee. The superintendent told 
the story of his early vision of such an ideal institution. 
From all over the land, behind the hills, beyond the moun- 
tains, came scores and hundreds of eager-faced youths to 
be taught. The superintendent expressed his conviction 
that this dream was coming true at Nacoochee Institute. 


76 The Romanee of Home Missions 


Others have seen the same inspiring sight and are catch- 
ing the vision of a great institution. 


One seven-year-old Nacoochee boy asked wistfully, 
“Father, what is the horizon?” ‘The horizon, little son,” 
the father explained, “is where the earth and sky come 
together.” Gazing quietly out of the window for a mo- 
ment, the little fellow drawing a long breath asked, 
“Father, what is beyond the horizon?” With moistened 
eyes and rising lump in his throat, the father said, “That, 
my son, is for you to find out; and it will keep you in- 
terested in doing your best for the rest of your life.” 


Service at Nacoochee is an ever renewing romance. 
One cultured, discriminating man once remarked, “I see — 
the point. You Nacoochee people are squarely up against 
real life in all of its reality.” Another,.a woman known 
in missionary circles of all denominations the world 
over for twenty years, after a visit to Nacoochee, said, 
“Don’t ever ask anybody but a thoroughbred to join your 
Nacoochee staff.” “And what is your definition of a 
thoroughbred, Miss P.?” “One who can do everything 
and can endure anything.” And so the romance of the 
service keeps the worker ever renewed and with the spirit 
of explorer and pioneer, pressing to discover the fair 
lands just beyond the horizon in the splendid human souls 
entrusted to our care. 


Nacoochee’s students have attended, or are now in, 
Davidson, King, Presbyterian College, Clinton, S. C., 
Oglethorpe, Emory, Mercer, Georgia Tech., University 
of Georgia, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, 
Columbia Theological Seminary, Kentucky Theological 
Seminary, Louisville, The Assembly’s Training School, 


The Romance of Home Missions 7/7 


Agnes Scott, Athens Normal School, State College for 
Women, Milledgeville, Ga., Washington and Lee, An- 
napolis Naval Academy, Berea, Ky., Piedmont, and 
North Carolina College for Women, Greensboro—where 
one of their number voiced the sentiment of the many: 
“Tf it had not been for the open door at Nacoochee, in- 
stead of being in this great institution of learning, | 
perhaps would still be shut up within the little mountain 
cabin where I was found.” 


They, who have lived long’ at Nacoochee, have come to 
know all the martyrs did not die in the first centuries, 
nor do all the heroes sleep on Flanders Field. 


Alfred Erickson 


The modesty of the missionary and the lack of detailed 
information on the part of the author are a twofold 
handicap in the effort to do substantial justice to worthy 
achievements in Home Mission spheres. Study classes 
must read between the lines and give play to imagination 
to supply the depressing environments and aggravating 
handicap required in cbtaining conspicuous results, de- 
spite overwhelming adverse odds. 


Alfred Erickson, Superintendent of our Pike County, 
Ky., Mission, was born in Shelton, N. J., and edu- 
cated in the public schools of that state, receiving his de- 
grees from Rutgers College and his theological training in 
Princeton Seminary. 


Coming to Kentucky in 1900, after his seminary course, 
he has been actively engaged in distinctive Home Mission 
work for nineteen years, closely associated with, and a 
part of, the slow, even strides of civilization and progress 


78 The Romance of Home Missions 


in general. At first the enrollment of the school at 
Phelps, now Matthew T. Scott Academy, was small and 
the people were slow to take hold of a. new adventure; 
now, through a quiet, persistent effort, the influence ex- 
tends for miles. 


Beginning with only a small residence, now in addi- 
tion to a large school building with rooms for boys, there 
is another dormitory for girls, a domestic science build- 
ing, a farm of seventy-five acres of the most valuable 
land in this section, part of it in cultivation, with an apple 
orchard of 1,000 trees. 


A new church building made of the native blue sand- 
stone is nearly complete, costing over $12,000. In the 
spring will be erected a small hospital for the care of the 
sick school children as well as those in the community. 
The entire plant is conservatively estimated at $65,000. 


Mr. Erickson has witnessed the results of the feudal 
spirit, has helped dress wounds of some of the victims. 
reasoned with “both sides,” and buried their dead. 


With Phelps as a center, are other mission stations— 
one on Knox Creek, where the feudal spirit was at its 
height when the Pike County work began. The lamented 
Dr. S. D. Boggs held services in a grape arbor under 
most trying experiences; but now the chapel and mission 
home, standing on this same spot, are looked upon with 
pride and deepest respect; while at Majestic, a mining 
town, the foreign element is reached in addition to the 
native mountaineer. 


“In the years that have passed there has been much to 
discourage, the work has been hard, but the results are 


The Romance of Home Missions 79 


seen in better homes, better living in the homes, greater 
appreciation, development in the grace of giving to the 
benevolences of the church, sympathy and help on the 
part of the better classes, and many souls brought to 
Christ, together with a yearly output of children from 
the school taking their places in hospitals, colleges, in 
business, in the legal profession, in the medical world, 
‘and especially in the homes—and all these going out not 
only educated in head but in heart and active in every 
good work of the Kingdom.” 


Mountaincrest 


Similar needs, romances and splendid achievements 
pertain to the Ozarks of the West. One illustration will 
serve the purpose of exhibiting the character of the ser- 
vice rendered and of the work accomplished. 


Several years ago Rev. J. Ev Jeter and wife were 
touched with the destitution of a large mountain region 
in the heart of the Ozarks, in the northwestern section 
of Arkansas. God laid this whole needy area on their 
hearts and consciences. Without a dollar, without any 
backing whatever, they turned their back on civilization 
and by faith undertook to establish a school to meet this 
pathetic call of human need. They bought a little moun- 
tain cabin and farm by faith at a point where four coun- 
ties join, appropriately named “‘Mountaincrest.” As Sec- 
retary of Home Missions, the author made a visit to 
this mission in its incipiency and was never more touched 
than with the pathetic situation. It was the beginning of 
severe winter. The children could easily crawl through 
the cracks between the rough logs of the house. At bed- 


1SSLONS 


The Romance of Home M 


80 





‘JI pawsoysues} Avy} se ysas-) urejunoy (q) 


‘pourqwios yosnyo puB [OOYOs ‘aWoY SB 3s41y Pas/) 
‘31 pUNOJ ss9}9f BY} SB 3S9IT) UTBJUNOYW (B) 





The Romance of Home Missions 81 


time, there being no stairway to the loft, the children 
and some members of the family climbed up the sides of 
the house like squirrels through an opening above, where 
they slept on the hard boards. The Secretary preached 
on Sabbath in the living room to a mixed audience of 
mountaineers and foreigners—one family being from 
Alsace-Lorraine and another from Germany! He left 
with mingled feelings of pity and admiration—enrolling 
J. E. Jeter and wife in the Eleventh Ee of Hebrews 
among the heroes of faith. 


Now after a few years of service witness the magnif- 
cent results as told by the man who transformed this bare 
mountain top into “a city set on a hill:” 


‘More than four years have passed since we started 
the Mountain Mission work in Washburn Presbytery. 
These years have been full of both sunshine and shadow, 
of bright hopes and dark despair, yet always more of the 
former than the latter. There were practically no Sun-, 
day-schools through the country districts and many chil- 
dren had never attended one. On the mountain ‘top 
the country was level and the atmosphere invigorating— 
the mountain itself being about twenty-five miles long 
with width ranging from a wagon road to two or three 
miles. There was no school, either day or Sunday. There 
was a vacant house, a very home-like place, with two 
rooms and a kitchen; and there was a barn where imag- 
ination immediately pictured a POEMS sce milch cow and 
a pony. 


“ ‘Beautiful Mountain Crest,’ its name suggests itself 
to you. When the sun rises in the morning it shows you 
its splendor, and with it there arises a feeling that you 


82 The Romance of Home Missions 


are on top of the earth and above its difficulties. It is a 
place to rest, worship and pray and last, but not least, a 
place to work, for there are incessant calls coming from 
all sides for the Gospel. Looking away to the north and 
east the mountains are broken by a tangle of ravines, out 
of which emerges the White River, sparkling on its long 
journey to the sea. To the south and east is the wild 
gorge of the Hurricane, while further on and to the 
north, close to where White River is born, Mulberry 
gushes forth and flows to the south, opening up a small 
inland empire. Over this many miles of broken expanse 
my mind constantly wanders, for wrapped in its folds, 
nestling close to its breast are hundreds of little moun- 
tain homes, and in each immortal souls. Some are perched 
like the eagle’s nest far up in her mountain coves, while 
others lie nestled in the valleys. It is for these, Moun- 
taincrest came into existence. 


“First on the scene, and alone, she raises her stately 
head, a mountain college, a seat of learning, worthy we 
hope of the great Church that brought her forth. Situ- 
ated near where four counties come together and on the 
divide between Arkansas and White Rivers, at an eleva- 
tion of about 2,500 feet, we have one of the best locations 
for raising and keeping vegetables found in the state, 
though we are six miles from a railroad station. We have 
one hundred and seventy acres of land, with about forty 
acres cleared. Our girls’ dormitory, just being completed, 
has cost in the neighborhood of $5,000. Each room is 
nicely furnished, which represents nearly $2,000 more. 
We have an enrollment of thirty-five pupils and more 
wanting to come. The Synod has adepted the school 
and granted permission to raise $12,000 to build and 


The Romance of Home Missions 83 


equip a boys’ dormitory. Our buildings are all paid for, 
the money mostly having been raised by the women of 
the Synodical, who have sustained the school both by 
their means and their prayers—and an appropriation 
from the Home Mission Committee of Atlanta. We see 
a great field of labor with glorious opportunities, and 
solicit. the co-operation of God’s people in its de- 
velopment.” 


Limited space will not allow narrating the stories of 
other similar institutions. The object of this study is not 
to cover the whole field but only to give specimens, cal- 
culated to illustrate the work and to reveal the romance 
of this sphere of service. 


BROTHERHOOD 





O land long hidden, long reserved! 
Safeguarded by the encircling sea, 
While Crown and Mitre rule the world 
And craven nations bowed the knee. 


Thy day is come. Thy starry gates 

Lift up their heads, with welcome crowned; 
“Come, all who dare my larger life, 

Who feel the pulse of freedom bound.” 


From Norway's wintry capes they come, 
From fair Italia’s sunlit plains; 

From fierce misrule and brutal wrong, 
The Jew throws off his hated chains; 


From Fatherland; from mother-love, 
The hardy Teuton finds a home, 

And Russ and Slav, Greek, Pole and Finn— 
From every land and sea they come. 


They come! They come! God give Thee Men! 
Men of the Prophet’s faith and mood, 

To read the dawning in the sky, 
Of universal Brotherhood. 


O land long hidden! Land of Hope! 
God keep Thee to Thy mission true; 

To heal the ancient wrong, and make 
Of all the old, one better new. 


Chapter Four 


The 
ROMANCE of NATIONALITY 


In all the ages the migrations of peoples by nations, by 
colonies and by individuals have filled a large place in the 
history of the world, often resulting in disastrous wars, 
frequently in changing the map of the world and ordinarily 
in influencing the destiny of nations. “The finger of God 
in History” suggests fruitful study and is a favorite theme 
with thoughtful students of divine providence. In the 
classic city of Athens on historic Mars Hill the greatest 
of Christian philosophers proclaimed: God “hath made of 
one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face 
of the earth, and hath determined the times before ap- 
pointed and the bounds of their habitation.” He might as 
truthfully have added that the divine guiding hand changes 
their “habitations” and shapes their destiny according to 
His purposes of grace in His moral government for the 
salvation of the world. 


Secular vs. Sacred History 


Sacred History differs from secular in more clearly ex- 
hibiting the hand of God behind the curtain, shifting 
the scenes and ordaining the means to the end. The con- 
fusion of tongues at Babel is not only an inspired explana- 
tion of the origin of nations but an illuminating statement 
of the purpose of God in their migrations. The Exodus 
of the children of Israel from Egypt was not only accord- 
ing to the divine purpose but “with signs and wonders” 


85 


86207 The Romance of Home Missions 


in which the hand of God in intervention was as manifest 
as His divine power in execution. “Is He the God of the 
Jews only’—and of Biblical times solely? “Is He not 
also of the Gentiles’—and of all the ages directing and 
controlling the movements of modern times and the events 
of secular history? The westward march of nations in- 
dicates a unity of plan as truly as any event recorded on 
the sacred page. The invasions of the Goths and Vandals 
fulfilled a divine purpose for the disintegration of the 
Roman Empire, which had served its mission and was due 
by reason of its internal corruption to give place to other 
nations in swaying the scepter of empire. The coloniza- 
tion of the British Isles first by the Celts, then by the 
Angles and Saxons and afterward by the Danes and Nor- 
mans was the first conspicuous experiment of History in 
the production of a composite nation—just the opposite of 
the exclusiveness of the Jewish racial type. 


The Great Composite 


The history of the United States is a history largely 
of immigration. The nations of the world by pouring 
their blood into America are reversing the confusion of 
Babel and uniting once again the discordant dialects of 
the earth into the speech of the Anglo-Saxon and trans- 
forming these heterogeneous people into* the composite 
and cosmopolitan American. Upon the scientific fact of 
blood relationship, philanthropy bases the brotherhood of 
man. Upon the revealed fact of redemption by the blood 
of Christ, Christianity grounds the brotherhood of be- 
lievers. The Tower of Babel is the symbol of disintegra- 
tion. Pentecost is its reversal—a prophecy of its fulfil- 
ment in the divine purposes of the Church by means of 


The Romance of Home Missions 87 


its missionary operations. Is there anything in Fiction 
to compare with the Romance of Nationality—the divine 
drama, exhibiting disunion by sin and reunion by the 
Gospel of the Son of God? 


The Father of Immigrants 


The migrations of nations and of colonies have had 
manifest influence on, human destiny, but perhaps not so 
great nor so potent in the aggregate as the immigration 
of individuals. Abraham.is not only “the father of the 
faithful” but of immigrants as well, being the first and 
most conspicuous individual who “by faith when he was 
called to go out into a place which he should after re- 
ceive for an inheritance obeyed; and he went out not 
knowing whither he went.” Multitudes have since fol- 
lowed his example, not always conscious of a divine call, 
‘but all in a sense guided by the same hand and under a 
similar impulse as that of Abraham—or the “waterfowl” 
whose migratory flight is the subject of William Cullen 
Bryant’s poetic theme. 

Emigrating. colonies influence the country of. their 
adoption, and often change the current of history, while 
they themselves holding together as a unit are often com- 
paratively unaffected by their new environment. It is 
equally true that segregation gives them a_ solidarity 
which renders them to a certain extent impervious to 
national and religious influences. The individual on the 
contrary is the opportunity of the Church. The change 
of residence makes a hiatus in his life; and the absence 
of family ties or ungodly associations make access easier, 
while new scenes render him more approachable and more 
yielding to the Gospel. This is the potent explanation 


88 The Romance of Home Missions 


of the fact that missions in behalf of Mexicans in Texas 
have been more successful than for the. same race across 
the Rio Grande in their native country, where priest and 
family ties serve to shield them from the approach of 
the Gospel. 


Illustrations—Varying Types 


It is comparatively easy to cull from catalogues the 
names of a ready-made list of immigrants who have 
achieved success or fame, and parade them as types— 
or their illustrious national characters as possibilities— 
but as a matter of fact these do not represent 100th of 
1 per cent of their countrymen. A fairer appraisement, in 
stricter accord with the truth, is to cite varying types as 
specimens of those who have attained distinction, and 
of others unknown to fame, who have contributed to the 
moral fiber and national life of the Republic—as well — 
as the derelicts who have proven a lability and’ a menace 
to the nation. 


l. Carl Schurz 


About the middle of the last century there came from 
Germany a man of striking personality, Carl Schurz, who 
had been an unsuccessful agitator and revolutionist, 
which brought him into conflict with his government and 
eventually to America to. try his fortune in a new en- 
vironment. He. soon developed. into a national figure, 
finding abundant opportunity for the display of his un- 
usual talents. Aligning himself with the North in the 
struggle between the States, he distinguished himself 
by courage and ability and was rapidly promoted to com- 
manding positions of responsibility in military service. 


The Romance of Home Missions 89 


After the war his conspicuous talents lifted him to equal 
prominence in civil affairs, and finally to the position of 
Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President 
Hayes. He is the type of hundreds of the so-called 
“Army of Invasion,” who were not “born great” or “had 
greatness thrust upon them’ but who by their merit 
“achieved greatness.” Let the reader exercise his in- 
genuity by making out a list of individuals of his type. . 


2. Mary Antin 


One in the same class but who came to America, not in 
mature life nor with character formed in the land of her 
birth, is Mary Antin, the Jewish girl, born in Russian 
Poland, who has written the “Promised Land,” as charm- 
ing a romance as anything inthe realm of fiction. It 
graphically describes Polish life in Jewish circles, with 
incidents and customs which vividly portray beyond 
anything ever written the handicaps of the Jew, his 
cruel hardships, especially the bitter persecutions called 
“Pogroms”’—a word that kept the whole Jewish popula- 
tion in a state of constant terror. It narrates the trials 
and impediments, which thwarted again and again the 
efforts of the family to emigrate to America, the suffo- 
cating fumigation en route, the aggravating delays, but 
more especially the child-life of immigrants in Boston, 
and her language difficulty in the public school, yet car- 
rying off the honors of the class in her graduation from 
high school. The saddest part of the narrative is her 
experience with Christianity, her attendance out of curi- 
osity upon certain types of evangelistic services and her 
candid admission that it made no impression upon her 
religious life. 


90 The Romance of Home Missions 


Is the Church always to blame and to endure censure 
for not converting the Mary Antins, the Trotzkys and 
others, who scorn her ministrations and resist her in- — 
fluences to win them to a Christian life? In estimating 
church responsibility it should be measured by her fidelity 
and her persistence in the effort to win the lost. Hers 
is not the prerogative of the Holy Ghost to make effectual 
the means of grace. Mary Antin is the type of the im- 
migrant child, thrust into new environments, blessed 
with the privileges of American institutions furnished 
by both church and state, who greatly profit by the latter, 
but who resist all overtures of the church to transform 
their spiritual life. ‘Who follows in her train?” | 


3. Edward Steiner 


Born in an insignificant village of the exploded Dual 
Monarchy among the Carpathian Mountains, Edward 
Steiner came to America in the maturity of manhood 
with but little religious inclination, if any. He has risen 
to positions of the highest distinction as author, educator 
and Christian philanthropist. Huis great books, “On the 
Trail of the Immigrant,’ “The Immigrant Tide,” “From 
Alien to Citizen,” etc., have stirred the church as to her 
responsibility in a way that none others have done. They 
are a mirror of his personal struggles and hardships, his 
amusing and unique experiences at Princeton Seminary. 
his arrest and false imprisonment, his conversion, his 
Christian ideals and aims. They record vividly the hfe 
and handicaps of the immigrant, the receding tide and the 
influence of the returning Pilgrims upon their native land, 
constituting a most powerful appeal to the Church to, 
use her golden opportunity for reaching these new in- 


The Romance of Home Missions 91 


habitants, brought by the providence of God to her very 
door, in order that she may commission them as_ her 
representatives in giving the Gospel to their kindred and 
companions in their native lands. He places on record 
his testimony that never in his life had he heard more 
eloquent and powerful preaching than that of some of 
those immigrants who had been converted in America 
and were now flaming evangelists among their own peo- 
ple. He records it as his abiding conviction that this is 
the surest and speediest method of evangelizing the world. 
His life-work is teaching in a Theological Seminary at 
Dubuque, Iowa, for training a native ministry for for- 
eign-speaking people. His is a brilliant romance in real 
life. May his tribe increase by geometrical progression! 


| 4. Samuel Morris 


In 1788 there came from Stratford-On-Avon, England, 
the birthplace of Shakespeare, Samuel Morris with wife 
and eight children. His father, Samuel Morris, 5Sr., 
evidently was a man of influence as he was appointed by 
the Church at Stratford on a Committee of three to 
have charge of the arrangements for the restoration of 
the monument to Shakespeare, which is still a prominent 
object in the Church and near his tomb with its well- 
known inscription. Samuel Morris, Jr., the immigrant, 
his son, was just an ordinary man of moderate means 
with a growing family—four children, being born in 
America, making a dozen in all. Landing in Charleston, 
S. C., he bought land and located in Abbeville. The 
youngest of his sons remained with his father and in- 
herited the parental home. The eldest son removed to 
Preble County, Ohio, and another to Sparta, Illinois. The 


92 The Romance of Home Missions 


daughters married and located in different states. Evi- 
dently the family were members of the Church of Eng- 
land as shown by the Parish Records at Stratford,. but 
though far separated in distant states of America, they all 
became members of the Presbyterian Church of the 
Psalm-singing variety. 


His descendants, over 500 in number, are scattered in 
twenty-two states of the Union. They are mostly Presby- 
terians, except where intermarriage or change of resi- 
dence has taken some into other denominations. They 
were not originally Presbyterian by inclination; but in 
the providence of God their separate lots were cast 1n 
Presbyterian communities—showing the advantage of 


having churches in every community to invite member- 


ship. They are now found in most of the usual profes- 
sions and various spheres of service—ministers,: teachers 
physicians, dentists, engineers, real estate agents, mer- 
chants, postmasters, undertakers, farmers, bankers, edi- 
tors, and perhaps many others. 


The remarkable fact is that among the 500 descendants 
of this immigrant family there has never been a crim- 
inal—in striking contrast with the famous Jukes family 
the prolific breeder of criminals. In the War between 
the States the descendants of Samuel Morris were ar- 
rayed on opposite sides, five having been killed in the 
Northern army and seven in the Southern. Among the 
latter were four brothers in one family and the father 
of the writer. Others saw service in the World War. 
in which some of them made the supreme sacrifice. One. 
a great-grandson, is Executive Secretary of Home Mis? 
sions of the Presbyterian Church, who has a gon, the 


The Romance of Home Missions 93 


sixth in regular succession, to bear the name of Samuel 
Morris. 

This immigrant family is exhibited as perhaps the 
most common type, representing those of the ordinary 
class. They were not of the aristocracy, nor furnished 
descendants who “achieved greatness.” They were as 
far removed, however, from the other extreme of those 
who became a liability to the state. They are the type 
of millions of the middle class who made not themselves 
but their country great. Most of the readers of this 
Romance in real life are descendants of the same type 
of immigrants, their country’s greatest asset. 


5. Emma Goldman. Trotzky and Co. 


There remains: to be considered the type of the unde- 
sirables, the curse of humanity, the alien who becomes a 
menace to civilization and a problem for both church and 
state. The oft quoted story of Trotzky’s career in New 
York—his laying an injunction on his companions to 
bring on a revolution in the United States, while he de- 
parts to Russia for the same purpose—bears all the ear- 
marks of fiction. Perhaps it has a basis in fact. His 
type is still doing its utmost to destroy the foundations 
of society, government, church and Christian civilization 
—like the serpent which strikes its fangs into the bosom 
that warms it back to vitality. 


Emma Goldman is fifty years old, born in Koyno 
Russia, and in early childhood removed to the United 
States. In 1887, when seventeen years old, she was mar- 
ried in Rochester to Jacob A. Kersner, who came from 
Russia in 1882. Two years later the Kersners were di- 
vorced by a rabbi according to the Jewish Rite, 


94 The Romance of Home Missions 


Her association with Berkman began thirty years ago 
in New York, but at their trial for obstructing the draft - 
both testified they were single—though notoriously’ liv- 
ing together. “I represent the devil,’ said Miss Gold- 
man at one of her meetings. “I am an apostle uphold- 
ing glorious freedom, the apostle standing out against 
law and order and decency and morality. I am for the 
devil, wha leads the way to the absolute yielding up to 
all the emotions here and now. Women are the slaves 
of little laws and conventions. They’ll learn to break 
the laws some day.” 


Berkman and Miss Goldman maide their headquarters 
in New York but they were well known in every large © 
city in the United States and also addressed anarchist 
meetings in Canada, England, Australia, Holland, and 
other countries. These meetings enabled them to live as 
comfortably as any despised capitalist would wish at the 
best hotels. They were finally deported, being returned 
to Russia from whence they came, where they should 
find suitable spheres for their peculiar talents. 


Emma Goldman, Trotzky and Co. fill our prisons, com- 
pose our breadlines, demoralize our mining and lumber 
camps, populate our slums, assassinate our Presidents 
and are incorrigible to all overtures of government, phil- 
anthropy or Christianity. The unregenerate criticize the 
Bible and God himself for allowing the Canaanites to 
be exterminated by Joshua—having filled up the measure 
of their iniquity. They might as well object to the de- 
struction of Sodom and Gomorrah by “fire from the 
Lord out of heaven.” The United States Government 
cannot exterminate these firebrands. It can only execute 


The Romance of Home Missions 95 


the Guiteaus and Cnolgoshes—after they have assassi- 
nated two Presidents—imprison the Debs type, deport 
the Emma Goldmans and by restricted immigration at- 
tempt to close partly our “unguarded gates,’ and thereby 
make entrance more difficult. 


Determining Responsibility 


In locating, allocating, distributing, accepting or repu- 
diating responsibility, both Church and state have their 
separate spheres of influence and their joint problem in 
handling the immigrants to a certain extent, but not alto- 
gether nor conclusively. Our attitude, and perhaps our 
actions, toward the immigrant determine whether he be- 
comes an asset as in the case of the Morris family or a 
liability as in the case of Trotzky and Co. 


The Problem of the State — 


First of all the state must meet a large portion of its 
responsibility before passing him on to the church, It 
has its Congress to pass laws affecting his entrance or 
exclusion, according to its wisdom, and its Ellis Island 
with a corps of competent examiners to test physical. 
mental and moral standards. 


America, since the war, alarmed lest intolerable Euro- 
pean conditions should dump their helpless wretchedness 
upon our shores, by restricted legislation has limited the 
number of each foreign country to 10% of its present 
American constituency. Under the operation of this law 
the number of arrivals annually could not exceed 348,023 
—plus additions from Mexico and Canada, two coun- 


96 The Romance of Home Missions 


tries unrestricted—making the total now annually hali 
a million. 


Possibly due to that fact, as one potent cause, the in- — 
coming tide is now turning in favor of Protestantism. 
A religious analysis made of European immigration for 
the year ending June 30, 1922, shows the following 
estimates : } 


From Protestant countries, 106,000; returned, 27,200; 
gain, 78,800. 

From Papal countries, 90,000; returned, 114,200; loss, 
24 800. 

Hebrews, 53,000; returned, 830; gain, 52,170. 


The aggregate of foreigners, and their children born 
in the United States, totals 36,000,000, almost exactly 
one-third of our population. An analysis of our Amer- 
ican stock indicates 35% as Anglo-Saxon; 30% Teu- 
tonic; 15% Celtic; 10% Slavic and kindred peoples, and 
10% Asiatics and Negroes. 


Assimilation 


America is the only country where “the melting pot’’ 
boils successfully and mixes effectively. Britishers, Ger- 
mans, Americans and others may become identified with 
other countries of their adoption but remain like the Gulf 
Stream, a current separate, which flows within its own 
channel. Not so with the United States; practically 
all who come hither are grist for the American mill. Be 
the alloy base or pure gold, the mixture is an American 
product. The New American is a composite experiment 
of the Divine Alchemist, and holds the future of the 
world in his potent hands. | 


The Romance of Home Missions vi 


The processes which mould this cosmopolitan citizenry 
are Naturalization, Americanization, and Christianization. 
They are not identical; and the National character of 
America, as well as the world’s future welfare, is con- 
tingent upon the latter. 

The difficulty of assimilating them into our national 
life and giving them Protestant Christianity grows out 
of their tendency to segregate themselves in our con- 
gested cities as colonies. Statistics show that 72% 
settle in our cities. In New York the increase in popula- 
tion during the first decade of the twentieth century for 
Russians, Italians and Austro-Hungarians was greater 
in each case than in the native population. 


The Problem of the Church 


If the state is charged with the responsibility of As- 
similation by processes of Americanization, the Church 
has the larger and more difficult task of Christianization. 
The one undertakes to prepare him for citizenship in the 
American commonwealth. The other seeks to qualify 
him for citizenship in the New Jerusalem. 

Until recently they segregated themselves in colonies, 
principally in great Northern cities, such as New York 
. and Chicago, but they are now overflowing into the great 
Southwest and are congregating in our Southern cities. 
Most of them come with their Continental ideas of the 
Sabbath, with socialistic principles, and many break away 
from all connection with the church. They are divided 
into three classes: 1. Those who are bitterly antagonistic 
_to the church and all forms of religion. 2. Those who 
are nominally Roman Catholic but indifferent to their 
obligations, which they imagine they have left behind 


98 The Romance of Home Missions 


them in their native land, and give loose reins to their in- 
clinations, subversive of all morality. 3. Those who have 
escaped the domination of the priest and are approach- 
able and receptive to the claims of evangelical Chris- 
tianity. 

A peculiar difficulty grows out of the difference be- 
tween a type of religion which was gorgeously ritualistic 
and politico-national, re-enforced by magnificent Cathe- 
drals, in contrast with the severe spiritual type of Protes- 
tantism, more especially when they are invited to shabby 
mission rooms on a back street. In one of our own 
missions those who had been accustomed to pictures on 
the walls as aids to their devotion saw in our Protestant 
Church only a clock, which some of the congregation 
watched occasionally, and it was ludicrous but somewhat 
natural that they went out and reported that Protestants 
worshipped a clock! | 

Assembly’s Home Missions is playing an important 
part and reaching twelve distinct Nationalities—combin- 
ing Home and Foreign Missions. The sweep of its in- 
fluence, however, is too limited, being confined to indi- 
vidual colonies in certain great centers where they con- 
gregate in racial groups. The supreme task of evangeliz- 
ing these peoples, in the providence of God brought to 
our doors, will never be effectually accomplished, till the 
conscience of local churches is awakened and their com- 
bined membership is marshalled in a vast recruiting 
agency for enlisting them under the banner of the cross. 


The Personal Equation 


The story of adventure and achievement among for- 
eign-speaking peoples, expressed in terms of the personal 


The Romance of Home Missions Oo 


equation, cannot be narrated in full but only suggested 
by illustrations of individual sacrifice and service as 
specimens. 


The Original Americans 


For three hundred years we have only played at the 
task of evangelizing the Indians, so that today there are 
still 49,000 Indians beyond the reach of any missionary 
work, while less than one-third of the Indian population 
is related to the various Christian communions; but the 
story of Christian missions is enriched by the self-deny- 
ing labors and the earnest and successful work of those 
who through the centuries have ministered to this ro- 
mantic race. ) 

The outstanding figure in Indian Missions of all times 
is John Eliot, whom Dr. Chas. L. Thompson in “The 
Soul of America” classes as a Presbyterian. Coming to 
Massachusetts in 1631 he spent fourteen years studying 
the Algonquin language, and then began his great work 
of. translating the entire Bible into that tongue. This was 
the first book that came from the American press, and 
it was published just fifty years after the King James 
Bible. He gathered the Indians in small villages around 
the colonists’ villages, that they might be thoroughly im- 
bued with the colonial Christian life. In thirty years 
the baptized Indians numbered 11,000 and had schools 
in fourteen towns. 


David Brainerd is probably the name most familiar 
as an early Presbyterian missionary to the Indians, though 
his labors lasted but four years. He was blessed with 
wonderful success, and it was the inspiration of his life 
and work, as shown by his diary, which sent Jonathan 


100 The Romance of Home Missions 


Edwards to the Indians, Henry Martyn, of Cambridge. 
to Arabia, and William Cary to India, a pioneer in the 
great modern missionary era. : . 

Jonathan Edwards subsequently took up the work and 
continued it until he was called to the Presidency of 
Princeton University. In the Revolutionary War the 
best of the young men of the tribe fell fighting for our 
country’s liberty and when the Indian survivors re- 
turned at the close of the war, a barbecue was prepared 
for them, at the suggestion of General Washington. In 
modern times there has been erected a monument to 
these early Christian Indians, which bears the simple in- 
scription, ‘“To the Friends of Our Fathers.” 


The First Native Missionary 


Cooper wrote of ‘The Last of the Mohicans,” but 
this is another instance where the vanishing race failed 
to disappear, for the Mohicans have decidedly increased 
in two hundred years, and the last census showed over 
five hundred Mohicans, now known as the Stockbridge 
Indians of Wisconsin. Probably the first native mis- 
sionary was a member of the Mohican tribe, Samson 
Occum, a pupil of Rev. Eleazar Wheelock’s Indian School 
near Norwich, Conn. He began his work among the 
Montauk Indians on Long Island. He went to England 
and Scotland in the interest of his work, even securing 
a contribution from King George, and brought back 
$60,000, which was used in founding Dartmouth College. 
intended originally for Indian youth. His most impor- 
tant work was among the Oneidas, and he induced the 
Mohicans to remove from Connecticut to land among the» 
Onedias, where he founded a remarkable town known as 


~The Romance of Home Missions 101 


Brothertown. These Indians and this town were after 
wards moved to Lake Winnebago, Wis., where they 
founded the first free school in Wisconsin, and gave to 
the Northwest its first woman teacher, Electra Finney, 
an Indian. Occum wrote several hymns, the most famil- 
iar being: 

Awaked by Sinai’s awful sound, 

My soul in bonds of guilt I found, 

And knew not where to go; 
Eternal truth did loud proclaim, 


“The sinner must be born again, 
Or sink to endless woe.” 


Gideon Blackburn 


The first missionary sent out under our Church as a 
missionary to the Indians was Gideon Blackburn, who 
probably did more than any one man to establish Presby- 
terianism in Tennessee and some parts of Kentucky. He 
was sent out in 1803 to the Cherokees by the Standing 
Committee on Missions, at his earnest appeal. Believing 
it only an experiment they commissioned him and gave 
him $200 for the support of a mission for two months. 
Calling a council of two thousand Indians he secured 
their assent to his plans, and they promised to send their 
children to the school he would open. After getting his 
school well started, he gathered Indians-and white set- 
tlers for a treaty of friendship and co-operation. Gov- 
ernor Sevier, who was present, said to Blackburn, with 
tears running down his face, “I have often stood un- 
moved in the midst of showers of bullets from Indian 
rifles, but this effectually unmans me. I see civilization 
taking the ground of barbarism and the praises of Jesus 
succeeding the war-whoop of the savages.” 


102 The Romance of Home Missions 


Blackburn’s health forced him to retire from this ser- 
vice in a short three years’ time, but he was succeeded 
by Cyrus Kingsbury and others, and from that day, the 
Cherokee Indians have been known as one of the five 
civilized tribes. 

It is interesting to note that Missionary Ridge received 
its name from a mission to the Cherokees, Brainerd es- 
tablished at that place, with Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury in 
charge. A school was established and much good done. 
When the Choctaws heard of the work being done for 
the Cherokees, they made application to the American 
Board of Missions, asking that a Bible School be given 
them, where their children could be taught the true way 
of life. Their request was granted and a school was es- 
tablished at Eliot, under Mr. Kingsbury. Other stations 
were opened, supervised by such men as Ebenezer Hotch- 
kin, Cyrus Byington, and Alfred Wright. 


The record of work among the Cherokees is one for 
pride and also for shame. In 1825 a young minister, 
Samuel Worcester, six days after he was ordained, with 
his young wife, started as a missionary to the Cherokees 
in Georgia and Tennessee. Finding the white men were 
taking the Indians’ lawful lands, he took up the cause of 
the Indians. One day while preaching, he was arrested, 
and after being taken on foot many miles he was im- 
prisoned. He was finally tried before a Georgia judge, 
with his associate, Dr. Butler, and sentenced to four 
years in Milledgeville Penitentiary. This was done under 
cover of a law which required every white man in the 
Cherokee country to take the oath of allegiance to the 
state, although as a federal official he was exempt. For * 
sixteen months he served, his wife and children being 


The Romance of Home Missions 103 


left helpless. At the end of that time they were re- 
leased and resumed their labors. 


The Migration 


The missions east of the Mississippi were kept up until 
the migration of the tribes to Indian Territory began in 
1832. One by one the mission points were closed, and 
many of the workers gave up the work and went back 
to their homes. The few who packed up their few earthly 
belongings and went with the Indians to their new homes 
in Indian Territory are sacred in the memory of the Choc- 
taws and the Presbyterian Church. 

“Only those who made the journey are capable of tell- 
ing just what it meant. They, alone, can tell just how 
terribly hard it was; the deep sorrow the Indians felt at 
having to leave their homes; the long, toilsome journey 
to the land of promise towards where the sun goes to 
sleep, the Indian Territory, set apart by our government 
to be their home “so long as grass grows and water 
runs.” More times than once on that long journey they 
suffered from hunger, sometimes they would beg for 
ears of corn from farmers whose farms they were pass- 
ing. The journey was made in the coldest part of the 
winter. It is said that one large company made the trip 
with nine-tenths of the women barefooted. The most of 
them were obliged to walk, even though at times the 
ground was frozen. The swamps in Mississippi were 
overflowed and the sickness, suffering and death that re- 
sulted from that muddy trail was terrible. One instance 
is recorded where a company of Indians were surrounded 
by water for sixty days. Famishing and perishing from 
hunger and cold, they saw their horses stick in the mud, 


104 The Romance of Home Missions 


freeze and die before aid came to them at all. To many 
of them help came too late, for although none of the 
Indians froze, numbers of them died from exposure. All 
along the journey graves were made, for vast numbers 
of them died before they reached the end of a journey 
which has aptly been named ‘The Trail of Tears.’ 


“At last the tedious journey was over. The remnants 
of many, once powerful, tribes reached the Indian Terri- 
tory, which at that time was almost a wilderness. This 
was to be their home forever, so the treaty made with 
the United States Government assured them. 


“From an old record, which is now almost a sacred 
relic to Indian Presbytery, we find that at a meeting of 
Indian Missionaries at Bethel Church, Choctaw, Nation, 
in 1836, there were present as active missionaries in the 
field, Reverends Cyrus Byington, Alfred Wright, and 
Ebenezer Hotchkin, all old friends of the Indians, all 
three having labored among them in the old home-land 
across the big waters. These three devoted, consecrated 
men were placed among the Choctaws to labor, to open 
mission points, to prepare the way for other laborers to 
follow.” Upon the foundations laid by them, Indian 
Presbytery and the Synod of Oklahoma have been built. 


Frank Wright, Evangelist 


One of the greatest evangelists produced by the Pres- 
byterian Church was Rev. Frank Wright, of the Indian 
Territory, whose father, Allen Wright, was a full-blood 
Choctaw preacher and chief of the Nation, but whose 
mother was one of our white mission teachers among the 
Indians. Their gifted son, a halfbreed, was educated at 


. 


The Romance of Home Missions 105 


Princeton and possessed a _ voice like Caruso, which 
brought him a most flattering offer to sing in Grand 
Opera. His early ministry in the City of New York gave 
promise of a brilliant career, but his Lord and Master 
had greater things in store for him, though the way led 
“through the valley of the shadow of death.” Being 
stricken down with tuberculosis, his life trembling in the 
balance, by prayer and faith his health was recovered by 
going back to his native plains in the far West, where 
he became a successful missionary to his own Indian 
people. He had in the meantime lost the knowledge of 
his native tongue. It was a curious sight to see this 
Choctaw Indian speaking to his people through Rev. 
Charles Hotchkin, a white interpreter, who spoke Choc- 
taw like a native. His melodious voice, his eloquent 
tongue, and his great evangelistic gifts created such de- 
mand for his services, that the largest churches through- 
out the United States vied with each other for his minis- 
trations, and his services were engaged more than a year 
in advance. Hundreds of his converts and thousands of 
his friends in every section of the country were shocked 
and grieved at his untimely death in the midst of his 
career of unsurpassed usefulness. 


Rev. Silas Bacon 


Rev. Silas L. Bacon, who died December 28, 1922, 
after a lingering illness, was the leading Choctaw minister 
of Indian Presbytery, and one of the most remarkable 
characters and finest products of our Mission Schools 
for the Indians. He’ was educated at Spencer Academy, 
under the tuition of the Rev. J. J. Read, which at that 
time was our leading Missionary School for Indians. 


106 The Romance of Home Missions 


« 


His religious life was fervent, pronounced and uncom- 
promising. Very early he heard and answered the call 
to become an ambassador for Christ to his own people. 





Rev. and Mrs. Silas L. Bacon, Founders 
of Goodland School and Orphanage for 


Indians. 


No man ever had more unbounded influence among his 
people, nor enjoyed more thoroughly the perfect confi- 
dence of both Indians and Whites. 


The Romance of Home Missions 107 


Perhaps his greatest achievement was the establish- 
ment of Goodland Indian School and Orphanage. Begin- 
ning in a small way, twenty years ago, its first dormitory 
was a rude hut for boys, supplemented by his own humble 
home for girls. He literally impoverished himself, put- 
ting his property, earnings and every available asset into 
the enterprise. If the Tribal authorities assigned eighty 
scholars at $7.00 a month each and one hundred came, he 
accepted all, although receiving no remuneration for the 
board of these extra students. 


‘He was instrumental in securing for the school 640 
acres of Indian land valued at $6,000 and an appropria- 
tion from the Choctaw Legislature of $10,000 for build- 
ings, the Executive Committee having already erected one 
brick dormitory at a cost of $5,000. Through the ap- 
peals of Mrs. Gibbons and himself he erected other build- 
ings; and at his death he left behind an institution valued 
at nearly $50;000, which has trained hundreds of Indians. 


_ Silas Bacon is typical of multitudes of Indians with 
rugged, earnest Christian characters, who are unknown to 
the Church—elders, deacons, and godly women, conspicu- 
ous and unmistakable products of divine grace, more than 
justifying the investments of the Church in its unrivaled 
Indian Missions. 


Indian Incidents 


As Secretary of Home Missions, the author has been a 
regular and fascinated attendant upon Indian Presbytery, 
for twenty years, and gave the following account of his 
recent visit : 

“Indian Presbytery is a most unique gathering. The 
Presbytery lasts one week, and they kill beeves or hogs 


108 The Romance of Home Missions 


to feed the crowd. In communities where only a few 
families live it costs, on an average, more than $100 per 
family to entertain Presbytery; and yet they contend for 
the privilege. They begin early with sunrise prayer meet- 
ing, and insist on preaching at least twice a day. Every- 
thing must be interpreted into English or vice versa. It 
requires ordinarily one hour to read and interpret the 
Minutes of the previous day. 


“At this meeting of Presbytery he was introduced to. 
a full-blood Choctaw boy, twelve years old, and was in- 
formed that he was a regularly ordained deacon in a 
Presbyterian Church. 


“The statement was made on the floor of Presbytery 
that one of their churches had dwindled to two families, 
containing five members and in very ordinary circum-. 
stances; and yet that church contributed during the year 
for its support and benevolences over $400. 


“They are as simple in their faith as children, sing the 
most pathetic, weird tunes, which sometimes bring tears 
to the eyes of visitors. They have such tender con- 
_ sciences, they will not take communion after a fall till 
they have confessed and had assurance that the church 
has forgiven them. They might teach Catholics the real 
meaning of confession and forgiveness.” 


Visiting one of the Mission Schools, the teacher made 
the statement that all the children knew the Shorter 
Catechism and proceeded to demonstrate the fact by call- 
ing up a six-year-old Indian boy who-was subjected to a 
successful examination. 


Nelson Wolfe, one of their full-blood Choctaw preach- 
ers, in addressing a General Assembly, related the follow- 


The Romance of Home Missions 109 


ing incident: A white man said to him: “Nelson, we 
white people crowded you out of the East. We are now 
crowding you out of Oklahoma; and we intend to keep 
on till we crowd you Indians into hell.” Quick as a flash 
came back the reply: ‘Unless you change your ways, | 
think you are in danger of crowding us out of hell.” 


Baily Springs, an Indian elder with a college education, 
Principal of Goodland School and Orphanage, was nomi- 
nated recently for Moderator of the General Assembly, 
and in making an address before that highest court of the 
Church, said: “Perhaps I am not the type you expected 
to see. The Indian of the old trail has passed. We now 
wear citizen’s clothes, and our paint and feathers have 
been appropriated by the white ladies.” 


Romance of Oklahoma Presbyterian College 


Twenty-five years ago Calvin Ralston, Jr., the little son 
of our missionary to the Indians, was accidentally drowned. 
His small bank deposit was dedicated by his parents to 
the establishment of a Mission School in the town of 
Durant, known as “Calvin Institute’ in his honor: After 
a few years it developed into “Durant College,” the build- 
ing costing $12,000. The first year revealed its utter in- 
adequacy to meet the need, but it served the purpose of 
Christian education for seven years, under the efficient 
Presidency of the Rev. E. Hotchkin, himself being the 
third generation of missionaries to the Indians. His ad- 
dress before the General Assembly at Greensboro, N. C., 
in 1908, evoked a spontaneous response, embodied in a 
resolution for the enlargement of this institution into the 
“Oklahoma Presbyterian College.” 


110 The Romance of Home Missions 


The town of Durant purchased the college building 
for a high school, paying the Home Mission Committee 
$20,000 for it, and friends in Durant presented the new 
institution with a magnificent site of twenty-three acres at 
a cost of $27,000. The Executive Committee undertook 
the erection of a hundred thousand dollar building, largely 
on faith in God, and in the women of the Missionary So- 
cieties. Its confidence in both sources of help was well 
founded, but it struggled with a tremendous debt for 
several years, being bonded for $30,000. | 


Rev. E. Hotchkin having declined re-election, Prof. 
W. B. Morrison, one of the teachers, was called to the 
Presidency, a remarkably wise choice, and he successfully 
financed its affairs for ten years and educated hundreds 
of young people now serving the state and church in 
every useful capacity. 


The school being crowded beyond all capacity and con- 
ception, the General Assembly meeting at Durant in 
1918, authorized the Home Mission Committee to un- 
dertake a second dormitory, costing nearly $100,000, 
which again entailed a heavy debt on the struggling in- 
stitution in a weak Synod which could not rally to its 
support. The town, however, paid one-third of the cost, 
the Home Mission Committee another third; and Mr. 
C. E. Graham of blessed memory came to the rescue with 
$20,000, one-half being paid before his death and the 
other half assumed since by his family. 


In 1922 there was an indebtedness of about $20,000 
on the property, and nearly $10,000 of accumulated 
deficits on current expenses and repairs. The new dormi- — 
tory was bare of furniture, practically all the teachers 


The Romance of Home Missions 111 


declined re-election from lack of faith in its ability to pay 
salaries and, worst of all, it had no prospect of students. 


In such circumstances the college threw open its doors 
with hope at the‘lowest ebb. Then came the first sur- 
prise. Students poured in from all over the state and 
from far down in Texas. Not only was it the best open- 
ing in its history, but it was blessed with the finest body 
of students imaginable—mature in age, serious in pur- 
pose and. with physical and mental endowments unsur- 
passed by any Junior College in the land. Next came 
the wiping out of all indebtedness—its Board of Trustees, 
at its recent meeting, had to pinch each other to be sure 
they were not dreaming. 


How did it all happen? Well, the mantle of a noble 
sire fell upon the worthy shoulders of his son, Allen G. 
Graham, who started the ball rolling by agreeing to pay 
the $10,000 which his father hinted as a prospect when 
he paid the first $10,000. Several Indians came into 
fortunes by the discovery of oil on their lands, and three 
of them gave $20,000 to the college—an illustration of 
“casting bread on the waters” by the Presbyterian Church 
in years past, and now coming back in grateful recog- 
nition of the benefit received by the Indian people. Sev- 
eral of them have also made large gifts to the Goodland 
School. The remarkable thing about it is that none of 
these Indians belonged to our Church, 


The Oklahoma Presbyterian College is just in the be- 
ginning of its career of usefulness. If properly equipped 
and sustained, it will quadruple its usefulness in the near. 
future and will multiply its results in ever-increasing 
ratio as the years go by and will more and more dem- 


112 The Romance of Home Missions 


onstrate its claims as perhaps the best investment the 
Church ever made in building up the Kingdom of God 
in the Southwest. 


Mexican Missions 


Next to our Indian Work, the Mexican is the oldest 
and the most successful. Even in their case only a few 
incidents and illustrations, as specimens, can be given 
place. 


Texas, the largest state in the Union, was originally 
a constituent part of Mexico. Its original inhabitants 
did not emigrate to the United States. They were the 
natives as truly as were the Indians. The Sabine River, 
separating Louisiana and Texas, was the boundary line. 
Americans emigrated to Texas. Then came the strug- 
gle in which the Lone Star State gained its independence 
and was admitted to the Union. New Mexico was after- 
ward wrenched from its fatherland and annexed by. the 
United States. In considering, therefore, the Mexicans 
who have “come” to this country, it must be recognized 
that multitudes of them never “‘came;’ they were already 
here. The total number living in this Union at present 
would fall little short of a million—over half of that 
number being in Texas. More of the same type are 
welcome. They are a valuable asset. 


Jose Maria Botello 


One of those who did emigrate forty years ago, Jose 
Maria Botello, will always be honored in missionary cir- 
cles as practically the founder of the Texas-Mexican 
Presbyterian Church. Coming under the influence of 
our Foreign Mission work on the border he was con- 


The Romance of Home Missions 113 


verted. Soon after this he removed with his family 
to San Marcos, where he was instrumental in bringing 
several of his countrymen into the Church; and under 
the ministry of the lamented Dr. J..B. French the first 
Mexican Presbyterian Church was organized. Two sing- 
ular coincidences occurred in connection with that. or- 
ganization. One of the charter members: returned to 
Victoria, Mexico, and was instrumental, as reported by 
Dr. Graybill, in organizing a Presbyterian Church in 
that important city, which led to the establishment of one 
of the most strategic Foreign Mission stations in Mexico 
—showing how Home and Foreign Missions act and 
react on each other. The other remarkable coincidence 
was the fact that Walter S. Scott, born of Scotch par- 
ents in old Mexico, acted as interpreter on the occasion 
and was taken under the care of Presbytery and became 
the first Presbyterian evangelist to the Mexicans in 
Texas and has organized the majority of all the Mexi- 
can churches. 


The church organized at San Marcos has grown into 
the Presbytery of Texas-Mexican, which now has _ its 
“Advance Field” under Mr. Scott’s supervision looking 
to the organization of a second Mexican Presbytery, and 

its great Texas-Mexican Institute at Kingsville, for boys, 
under the competent management of Dr. J. W. Skinner, 
with a similar institution for girls at Taft just beginning. 
The Mexican Presbyterian forces in Texas have grown 
to 15 ministers, 32 churches, 1832 communicants and 
property valued at $100,000. The story reads like fic- 
tion. It is an accredited romance abundantly substan- 
tiated by living witnesses. 


114 The Romance of Home Missions 


Rev. Walter S. Scott contributed to the religious press 
the following incidents which lend additional color to 
the romance of the story: . 


“Returning once from a visit to our Uvalde Mexican 
church, I stopped at Sabinal and held two open-air meet- 
ings. Among those who heard me preach was a man 
who had quite a reputation among Mexicans and Amert- 
cans as a gambler. The morning following the second 
service he had to leave town to go to work on a ranch. 
Before leaving he took his favorite pack of cards, the 
ones he did business with, and burned them. He hunted 
for a copy of the New Testament which he had stored 
away in some of his boxes and took it with him. He 
read it through twice before I saw him again several 
months after. On that second visit he and his wife 
professed religion and united with the church. His 
wife’s parents and relatives disowned her and would 
have nothing more: to do with her. She went to: visit 
them shortly after, but was not allowed to enter: the | 
house and was abused most unmercifully. Her father 
never forgave them till the day of his death. 


“This ex-gambler now became a completely trans- 
formed man; winning to himself the respect of the 
entire community. He is an industrious, law-abiding citi- 
zen and is endeavoring to win others to the same new 
life in Christ. By the united efforts of himself and 
wife, two whole families were brought to the saving 
knowledge of the Gospel and are now active members 
of the church, resulting in the organization of the Mexi- 
can church. 


“A man arrived at Martindale with his family and’ 
other relatives from the country south of San Antonio, 


The Romance of Home Missions 115 


traveling most of the distance on foot. This man in his 
younger days had been a highwayman; when he came to 
Texas—leaving his family in Mexico—he joined him- 
self to some American outlaws. For a while he was the 
companion of the notorious outlaw, Jim McCoy, who was 
afterward apprehended and hung in San Antonio. After 
the hanging of McCoy he returned to Mexico and brought 
his family to Texas. He farmed for two or three 
years in Bexar County near San Antonio, and then, on 
account of ill health, he moved to Martindale, where he 
attended our services and received many kindnesses from 
our members. He finally made public profession of 
his faith in Christ, and I received him into the church 
and baptized him. Later, he entered into the organiza- 
tion of the Reedville Mexican Church and was made an 
elder. Still later, he helped to organize the Bexar Mexi- 
can Church and became an elder of it. He has been a 
most faithful and efficient officer, a diligent student of 
God’s word, and is an intelligent and conscientious Pres- 
byterian. All his large family are exemplary members 
of the church and one of his sons is studying for the 
ministry. He has been going once a month in his own 
conveyance and at his own expense some seventy-five or 
eighty miles to hold meetings and do Gospel work in 
Medina County.” 


Jewish Missions 


The Executive Committee specializes on the Jewish 
Mission in the city of Baltimore, selected because of the 
fact that it contains a large Jewish population. Jewish 
evangelization is generally supposed to be a hard propo- 
sition and yet they are won more easily than Mohamme- 


vOns 


ISS 


The Romance of Home M 


116 





‘os0UITTeG (UOISSIP, YsImas) 
‘JJo] JW uBWIOg [Neg “AZY ‘asnopy{ pooysoqysiexy januewwy “Ss “g *A ‘q 24} Je ZulyewW YOOuUWLY PUB JoOySEg 


% 
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Neer 
eee 2 


a; 


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The Romance of Home Missions 117 


dans. It is claimed that a quarter of a million Jews em- 
braced Christianity during the nineteenth century. There 
are three hundred Christian Jews in the ministry today 
of the Church of England. Since the war they seem 
more approachable; and within the past four years 30,000 
Jews in Hungary alone joined the Christian Church—s» 
reported by Dr. McDonald Webster at the Zurich Con- 
ference in Switzerland, July, 1923. 


David Trictsch recognized as a Jewish authority on 
statistics estimates their population in the world at 17,- 
073,000 of whom 3,900,000 dwell in the United States. 
In the city of New York the number who speak Eng- 
lish in 897,452, outnumbered by the 946,139 who speak 
Yiddish. These latter have one advantage over all others, 
in that it is a common tongue enabling them to converse 
with each other regardless of nationality. 


Rev. Paul Berman, minister in charge of the mission 
in Baltimore, at our request, furnishes the following 
stories to illustrate the character of the work done and 
the results accomplished : 


“The story of one immigrant, a child of the Polish 
Ghetto, typical of thousands in need of the Gospel, is an 
illustration of those being reached by our Jewish Mis- 
sion. At the age of three his parents carried him to the 
Synagogue, where he was dedicated to the Lord, being 
told that he was a Jewish boy and destined to suffer 
much at the hands of Gentiles, wicked men, followers 
- of One, who was once a Jew, but who turned against 
them and became their bitterest enemy. At the age of 
fifteen he had to leave school, in order that he might help 
his parents financially. He loved his parents, had much 


118 The Romance of Home Missions 


sympathy for his Jewish brethren, and hatred for those 
Christians who persecuted his people. Above: all, he- 
hated Poland—his own fatherland, because of the perse- 
cutions of his race. At seventeen he left his fatherland, 
resided. in Germany for two years and afterward in 
Belgium, where he worked to get enough money for a 
ticket to America. 


“In August, 1922, he came to the city of Baltimore. 
At last he is in America, where he can breathe freely, 
where one does not need to lock his door for fear that 
Gentiles might break in and kill the household. A few 
days later Mr. Z. decided to take a walk on a quiet Friday 


evening. On Baltimore Street he heard the sound of | 


music from a distance. ‘Who is getting married on a 
Friday night?’ In his country music was only heard at 
weddings, and that not on a Friday night. At Baltimore 
and Eden Streets he saw a large gathering of men, 
women and children. ‘Surely there are no pogroms in 
America,’ he comforted himself; ‘but why such a crowd?’ 


“Yielding to curiosity he reached the corner of Eden 
and Lombard Streets, and soon discovered, to his great 
surprise, that there are Jews who believe in Christ—the 
very One he hated—and that these Jewish Christians ask 
the other Jews to believe in the same Christ. That even- 
ing he heard that Jesus loved the Jews and that all those 
who follow Him also love the Jews. ‘What! Christ 
loved the Jews?’ That was indeed strange news to him. 
Did not his Rabbis tell him that Jesus was the cause of 
all their suffering? He left that meeting in a restless 
state of mind. The next he attended he asked the mis- 
sionary for more information. Not many days later, 
Mr. Z. got all the information he needed; and before 


The Romance of Home Missions ry) 


his eyes there arose a new Christ—the Christ of the 
Gospels, full of love and compassion, a friend, and not 
an enemy, a Messiah and personal Saviour. 


“September 27, 1923, was a great day for him, the 
happiest of his life. That evening he took the first stand 
for Christ. He desired that all should know that Jesus 
was his Messiah and he enrolled himself as a disciple in the 
School of Christ. One Sunday night on the car from 
the Presbyterian church which he attends regularly, turn- 
ing to the missionary, with eyes full aglow, he said: “Who 
would have thought a year ago that I would get so far in 
and be glad of it too?’ I answered nothing, but within 
my heart there was a feeling of joy and praise to Him 
who alone is able to bring such things to pass. That 
is exactly the way our God performs miracles. He caught 
Paul while on the road to persecute the Christians. He 
has caught thousands—among others my friend Mr. Z. 


“Several years ago four little girls came to our mission 
with the consent of their parents. They came, like the 
other little girls, to play and sew and hear beautiful 
Bible stories. These dear children knew nothing about 
the great Lover of children. In fact, they never heard 
a Bible story in their homes. Father was either too busy, 
or he did not care to teach his children religion. 


“Our workers had to begin from the beginning. They 
were told about the boys and girls of the Bible. They 
were glad to memorize verses of Scripture and to sing 
beautiful hymns. They even retold the stories to their 
parents when asked what the missionaries talked about. 
By and by the teachers told them some New Testament 
stories—about the Great Prophet sent from God, and 


120 The Romance of Home Missions 





Wedding of Gong Sing, one of the New Orleans Chinese Mission 
boys, who married a Christian girl in Canton. The picture was 
taken outside the Baptist Church in Canton, China. 


The Romance of Home Missions 121 


that He was the long expected Messiah, who came to re- 
deem the Jewish people. They gladly listened, because 
of the interest it aroused. In the meantime the teachers 
not only talked about the love of Christ, but tried to live 
the Christ-like life. That touched them, and it brought 
forth fruit. The four little girls are now young ladies. 
They still come to our mission, but as believers in the 
Lord Jesus Christ. One suffers persecution for her 
faith, but she is glad to suffer for her Lord. All four 
are living beautiful Christian lives.” 


The accompanying picture, of the marriage of one of 
our boys trained at the Chinese Mission in New Orleans, 
tells its own story and must be taken as the type of work 
carried on in our numerous missions for foreign-speak- 
ing people. 


The stories of the other nationalities cannot be in- 
cluded. Millions representing all the greater nations of 
the globe are being absorbed into our national life. They 
must be reached by the Church with the Gospel for their 
own sake, for our country’s sake, for the world’s sake, 
and above all, for Christ’s sake. Is the evangelization 
of the world our goal? These aliens are our greatest 
opportunity and our weightiest responsibility. If our 
Christianity is not virile enough to save those in our 
midst, surrounded with the highest Gospel privileges and 
re-enforced by the best organized forces of the world, 
how can we hope to evangelize them in their environment 
of heathenism? The Church must rise to the occasion, 
to the opportunity and to the call of God in this age on 
ages telling. 


THE BURDEN 


“O God, I cried, “why may I not forget? 
These halt and hurt in life’s hard battle 
Throng me yet. 

Am I their keeper?—only I—to bear 

This constant burden of their grief and care? 

Why must I suffer for the others’ sin? 

Would that my eyes had never opened been!” 
And the thorn-crowned and patient one 
Replied, “They thronged me, too; I, 

too, have seen.” 


“Thy other children go at will,’ I said, 
Protesting still. 
They go, unheeding. But these sick and sad, 
These blind and orphan, yea, and those that sin, 
Drag my heart. For them I serve and groan. 
Why is it? Let me rest, Lord. I have tried 7 
He turned and looked at me; “But I 
have died.” 





“But, Lord, this ceaseless travail of my soul! 
This stress! This often fruitless toil 
These souls to win! 
They are not mine. 1 brought not forth this host 
They are not mine.” 
He looked at them—the look of one divine! 
He turned and looked at me; “But they 
are Mine.” 
“O God,” I said, “I understand at last. 
Forgive! and henceforth I will bond-slave be 
To thy least, weakest, vilest ones, 
I would not more be free.” 
He smiled, and said, “It is to Me.” 


—Lucy Riper MEYER. 


122 


Chapter Five 


The 
ROMANCE of RACE RELATIONSHIPS 


The Negro population of the United States is eleven 
millions—which means one in every ten—and is still in- 
creasing, though not so rapidly as the Whites. The first 
national census in 1790 revealed that 19.3% of our total 
population were Negroes. At the time of the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation the percentage had decreased to 


14.1%; in 1910, to 10.7%; and in-1920, to 9.9%. 


As anticipated, the census of 1920 reveals a significant 
change in the location of Negroes, in different sections of 
the country. Sixty years ago 92% of the Negroes lived 
in the South. Ten years ago 89% were in the South. 
Now 85% of. the Negro people are in the South. The 
summary of changed geographical locations of Negro 
population assumes rather startling form, when it is 
realized that in the last decade the increase in Negro 
population in the South has been 1.9%; in the North, 
43.3%, and in the West, 55.1%. The Negro, quite as 
much as the white man, has heard the summons of the 
city life, and has obeyed. While three-fourths of the 
Negro population is still rural, there has been a steady 
stream to the cities. 


In two Southern states, South Carolina and Mississippi, 
they are in the majority; in Georgia, Florida, Alabama 
and Louisiana, they equal nearly one-half of the popula- 
tion. Thirteen Southern states report each more than 
200,000; eight of these have more than 600,000; and sev- 


123 


124 The Romance of Home Missions 


eral nearly a million. These thirteen Southern states 
contain six-sevenths of the Negroes of the United States. 
In exactly one-fifth of all the counties of sixteen South-_ 
ern states the Negro is in the majority. Heretofore 
the Negro question has been almost exclusively a South- 
ern problem. 


The Department of Labor reports that “recent extra- 
ordinary occurrences—the war in Europe, with the conse- 
quent shortage of labor in the North, the ravages of the 
boll weevil and flood conditions in the South—have set 
on foot a general movement of Negroes northward, that — 
is affecting the whole South.” In addition to these con- 
ditions it 1s said other causes influencing this exodus 
from the South are: Low wages, better educational fa- 
cilities, unsanitary housing, lynching and the propaganda 
of labor agencies. It has served to introduce the Negro 
problem into the North in a most acute form, and the 
whole country holds its breath in anticipation of some 
terrible widespread outbreak resulting in massacres of the 
most shocking nature. 


The Negro Year Book, published by Tuskegee Insti- 
tute, maintains that statistics show a counter movement 
from North to the South. Even if the two balanced 
each other in numbers, it would still mean disturbed eco- 
nomic conditions, affecting more especially agricultural 
interests, as the exodus from the South is from the rural 
districts, while the other movement is from Northern 
to Southern cities, leaving our fields uncultivated—a 
tremendous economic loss. 


“God that made the world and all things therein’ * * *° 
hath made of one (blood) all nations of men for to 


The Romance of Home Missions 125 


dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined 
the times before appointed and the bounds of their 
habitation, that they should seek the Lord.” The trans- 
lators of the English Bible have supplied the word, 
“blood;”’ but there is nothing to indicate the qualifying 
word, whether “blood’’ or “federal headship,” or “heart,” 
or “nature.”’ Whether it teaches the unity of race, of 
condition or of character, there can be no questioning 
the unity of obligation to a common Creator, demanding 
“that they should seek the Lord.’ Common obligations 
as “the offspring of God” create a community of in- 
terests, and of relationships. Racial types involving “the 
origin of species” are a problem belonging to the domain 
of Divine Providence. The adjustment of racial relation- 
ships is a problem pertaining to the sphere of human life. 


Can a democracy successfully deal with race problems? 
Autocracy armed with unlimited authority and backed 
by militarism may curb the prejudices and passions of 
men, but democracy with its insistent demands for the 
largest personal liberty has a more difficult task, especially 
when socialism cultivates the contradictory principles— 
of eschewing class antagonisms and intensifying them at 
the same time. 


The population of the South consists of about 25,000,- 
000 of the Anglo-Saxon race, 9,000,000 Negroes ana 
2,000,000 Immigrants. Their peaceful occupation of the 
same territory is to the credit of all parties. Unfortu 
nately race prejudice is mutual, but not greater in pro- 
portion to numbers than in any other section of the 
world. Mob law disgraces any community, and patriotic 
and Christian people should not only condemn it in un- 


126 The Romance of Home Missions 


mistakable terms, but join in every worthy movement 
to eradicate it as a menace to our enlightened civilization. 
Church and state, press and pulpit, must make their 
power felt. Legislatures must enact laws, and courts 
of justice enforce penalties without fear or favor. Chris- 
tian womanhood, for whose protection lynch law justifies 
itself, must repudiate lawless crime and use its potent 
influence for punishing guilt by legal processes. 


Amicable adjustment of race relations and the cultiva- 
tion of goodwill between them is the acid test of Chris- 
tianity. The Gospel of “goodwill toward men” an- 
nounced by the Angels at the Nativity, promulgated by 
the teachings of Christ and professed by the Church in 
‘all ages, should manifest itself in consistent practice. 
Would it not be well for churches and individual Chris- 
tians to promote a campaign for practicing. more cordial 
relations between the races? Can a superior race suc- 
cessfully evangelize another unless it does more than 
SDreach 10 at: i : 


The solution of the Race problem has baffled alike 
human governments, earthly philosophy, the noblest phil- 
anthropy, and the science of sociology. Its solution must 
be sought in the realm of religion. The Gospel of the 
Son of God is the sole remedy. The failure of Chris- 
tianity hitherto to find the remedy is no greater indict- | 
ment than congested cities, the abolition of poverty and 
the banishment of war. By the grace of God, through 
the application of the principles of the Gospel, under the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church will ultimately 
solve all problems and trample under foot all the products 
of evil. 


The Romance of Home Missions 127 


The Church has at present a twofold obligation to the 
Negro as an undeveloped and suffering race. One is in 
the sphere of sociology, the other in the domain .of re- 
ligion, though the two necessarily overlap. 


In the interests of common justice and civilized hu- 
manity the Church should preach the obligations of Chris- 
tianity between man and man, thereby creating a Chris- 
tian sentiment in favor of extending to the Negro his 
God-given rights as a man created in the image of God: 
the protection of his rights in Courts of Justice, the 
protection of his health and moral character in housing 
conditions, and above all the protection of his life in the 
hands of infuriated mobs. The Church may not as an 
organization enter the sphere of the state, but it can 
teach the Golden Rule involving the principle of just 
citizenship in the “righteousness that exalteth a nation.” 


As the outcome of awakened Christian conscience, 
already commendable organizations are springing up, such 
as “The University Commission on Southern Race Ques- 
tions,’ and “The Interracial Commission’”—having for 
their object the cultivating of better feelings between the 
races and substantial justice for the Negro. The elimina- 
tion of lynchings must be effected, not simply for the 
Negro’s sake but in the interest of our own civilization. 


Residence in the midst of the great masses of the 
Negro population, instead of rendering their white breth- 
ren impartial judges of the Negro, has often the effect 
of disqualifying. Nearness is always a severe test. An 
evaluation based upon “characteristics” may correctly es- 
timate the Race, but does great injustice often to the in- 
dividual. An appeal is hereby lodged, urging that we 


128 The Romance of Home Missions 


lay aside both prejudice and sentiment in order to re- 
view individual attainments and take an inventory of 
their aggregate achievements. Shall we hold them for- | 
ever accountable for the past; or shall we judge them by 
their possibilities as exhibited in this array of success- 
ful awards? 


Illustrations 


There might be given a long list to the credit of in- 
dividual Negroes, the following being specimens: The 
first blood shed in the American Revolution was that of 
the Negro, Crispus Attucks. A Negro, named Estevan- 
cio, discovered Arizona. The prize was won by Rene’ 
Maran, a Negro, for the best French novel for the year. 


Rev. John W. Widgeon, who for forty years has been 
the caretaker of the Maryland Academy of Sciences, was 
given a diploma by the academy as a token of apprecia- — 
tion for the contributions which he has made to the fauna 
and flora at the academy. He is regarded as an authority 
on the fauna and flora of Maryland, as well as its geo- 
logical formation. The first geological exhibit of John 
Hopkins University was collected by him. 


Eunice Roberta Hunton received both her A. B. and 
A. M. degrees at the 1921 commencement of Smith Col- 
lege, Northampton, Mass. This is the largest woman’s 
college in the world. She did all the work necessary 
for the two degrees in the regular four-year period. She 
was the only one in a class of almost 500 to do this. In 
fact, only one other girl has been able to accomplish this » 
at Smith College since its founding in 1878. 


The Romance of Home Missions 129 


Illustrious Scientist 


Professor George Washington Carver, is Director of 
the Scientific Research and Experiment Station of Tuske- 
gee Institute, whose products from the cow pea, sweet 
potato, peanut and pecan and the clays of Macon County, 
Alabama, have raised him from obscurity to the pinnacle 
of fame—a fellow in the Royal Society of London, one 
of America’s most famous scientists and the winner of 
the Spingarn Medal for 1923, awarded by the National 
Association for the advancement of Colored people. 

Like many other men of this and other countries, who 
have attained fame, Professor Carver was of humble par- 
entage, being born in Diamond Grove, Missouri, about the 
close of the Civil War. His life embodying the trials 
and tribulations of the reconstruction period is one of 
tragedy and adversity and withal of achievement. His 
life story reads like fiction, but is intensely more inter- 
esting. His birthplace was a one-room shanty on the 
plantation owned by Moses Carver, a German farmer, 
who was the owner of Carver’s mother. The only knowl- 
edge which Professor Carver has of his father is that 
he was “killed by a team of oxen while hauling wood.” 

His life story is herein incorporated, somewhat abbrevi- 
ated: “At the close of the war, my mother was stolen 
with myself, a wee babe, in her arms. My brother, 
James, was grabbed and spirited away to the woods by 
Mr. Carver. They carried us down into Arkansas and 
sold my mother. At this time I was nearly dead with 
the whooping cough and was so frail that they thought, 
of course, that I would die in a few days. Mr. Carver 
heard of my whereabouts and immediately sent a very 
fine racehorse, valued at $300, and some money to pur- 


130 The Romance of Home Missions 


chase my release, which was effected. Efforts to find 
my mother to this day have been futile. 


“After finishing high school, J wanted to go to Coreen 
To secure the money for this purpose, I opened a laun- 
dry in a college town, and was liberally patronized by the 
students. In this way I earned enough money in one 
year to take me to Simpson College at Indianola, Iowa, 
where I took art, music and college work. I also opened 
a laundry here for my support. After all my matricula- 
tion fees had been paid, I had ten cents left to live upon. 
1 bought five cents worth of corn meal and the other five 
cents I spent for beef suet. I lived on these two things 
one whole week—it took that long for the people to learn 
that I wanted clothes to wash. After that week I had ~ 
many friends and plenty of work. 

“T would never allow anyone to give me money, no 
matter how badly I needed it. I wanted, literally, to earn 
my living.» I remained in Simpson College for three years 
and then entered Iowa State College at Ames, lowa. 
where I pursued my agricultural work, taking two de- 
grees, Bachelor and Master of Science, respectively. 

“After obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree, I was elected 
a member of the faculty, and given charge of the green- 
house bacteriological laboratory and the laboratory of 
systematic botany. I was serving in this capacity when 
Dr. Booker Washington influenced me to come to Tuske- 
gee, where I have been for twenty-nine years.” 


999 Products in 29 Years 


Major Moton, distinguished principal of Tuskegee In- 
stitute, gives this informing account of his marvelois 
achievements : 


The Romance of Home Missions 4 


“For twenty-nine years, Professor Carver has labored 
diligently in his laboratory, applying himself assiduously 
to the task of discovering useful products in every-day. 
ever-ready materials and of developing the resources of 
the South. On display in his laboratory are: potash, 
from chinaberry ashes, chinaberry meal; tonic stock feed, 
made of snap corn, velvet beans, cottonseed meal, etc. 


“Of Professor Carver’s “999 varieties—and this num- 
ber is yet progressing according to the principles of. arith- 
metic and geometric progression—the most famous are 
perhaps the 166 products from the peanut. From the 
position of a popular circus-day food and a luxury for 
a certain specie of the anthropoidean family, under the 
magic wand of Professor Carver the peanut is rapidly 
becoming one of the foremost food products of the South. 


“In an interview Professor Carver said: ‘I regard the 
peanut as the universal food. A pound of peanuts con- 
tains a little more of body-building nutrients than a 
pound of sirloin steak, while the heat and energy-pro- 
ducing nutrients are more than twice the number. 

“Conspicuous among the ‘Carver Peanut Group’ is the: 
peanut milk, which compares favorably in food value 
with the cow’s milk. It contains only one-tenth as much 
water, three times as much ash, three times as much pro- 
tein, three times as much carbohydrates and twelve times 
as much fat, and its keeping qualities are about the same 
as cow’s milk. 

“According to Professor Carver, the possibilities of 
peanut milk for cooking purposes are unlimited. The 
sweet and sour milk may be utilized in the same way as 
the cow’s milk, and the curd can be made into many kinds 
of cheese. The buttermilk is also usable and palatable. 


132 The Romance of Home Missions 


“Of equal, or of more, significance than peanut milk 
are the dyes which this scientist has produced from the - 
skin and veins of the peanut—dyes, inks and sauces—a 
queer combination, and it might be interesting to know 
that Professor Carver uses only his ink in writing. 


“Notwithstanding the fact that the lowly peanut has 
already given up 166 products, Professor Carver declares 
that he has only begun to develop the possibilities of the 
peanut. | 3 


“When one looks at a sweet potato lying peacefully in 
a bin, or decorating a dish as candied yams, or garnish- 
ing a pork roast, he does not realize the potentialities of 
this member of the tuber group. For years the sweet 
potato has been used largely as enumerated above, but 
Professor Carver, still manifesting that curiosity of his 
early childhood, ‘to know everything,’ has discovered 
165 products that can be made from the sweet potato, 
including flour, meal, starch, library paste, breakfast 
foods, preserved ginger, vinegar, ink, coffee, chocolate 
compounds, candies, rubber compounds, stock food, mo- 
lasses, wood fillers, and shoe blacking. What a combina- 
tion one eats when he eats a sweet potato! 


“No group appreciated the sweet potato products, par- 
ticularly the flour, more than 2,000 students at Tuskegee 
Institute during the war, when there was a shortage of 
wheat flour. During this period the sweet potato flour 
was used as a substitute and as such attracted wide atten- 
tion, culminating in the decision of the government, that 
the sweet potato flour offered probably the greatest possi- 
bilities in the way of saving wheat that had yet been 
discovered in America. 


The Romance of Home Missions [33 


“Now comes the third of the ‘South’s three money 
crops’—the pecan. Playing the old trick of ‘come into 
my parlor said the spider to the fly,’ Professor Carver 
has coaxed the pecan into his laboratory and pronounced 
the mystic ‘open sesame’ words, thereby laying bare 98 
secrets in the form of products that can be made from 
the pecan, including, meals, oils and other products. 
This represents the latest experiment of Professor Carver 
and he holds high hopes of the results. 


“In addition to the research work of this type, Pro- 
fessor Carver conducts soil analysis and fertilizer analy- 
sis for farmers of the county and section in which Tuske- 
gee Institute is located. In spite of the praise he has re- 
ceived from individuals and organizations from all over 
the world, Professor Carver is yet impervious to the 
plaudits of man and continues his work in an unassum- 
ing way. He and his achievements are a credit to the 
Negro race and to America.” 


Achievements of the Race 


According to the most recent reports concerning prop- 
erty owning, it is found that in 1920, Negroes in North 
Carolina paid taxes on $53,901,018 worth of property. 
In Virginia, Negroes in 1921 owned 1,911,443 acres of 
land valued at $17,600,148. The total assessed value of 
their property in that State was $52,505,951. In Georgia, 
where there has been a continuous report on Negro prop- 
erty-owning, for half a century, it is found that in 1875 
the Negroes of that State had acquired almost four hun- 
dred thousand acres of land (396,658), valued at $1,263,- 
902. The total value of the property on which they 


134 The Romance of Home Missions 


were then paying taxes was $5,293,885. In 1921, 45 
years later, the Negroes of Georgia owned 1,838,129. 
acres of land, valued at $20,808,594. Their total prop- 
erty had increased from $5,293,885 to $68,628,514. 


Through purchases and increases in values, property 
holdings of Negroes of the country increased during the 
year by probably fifty million dollars. It is estimated 
that the value of the property now owned by the Negroes 
of the United States is over one billion five hundred mil- 
lion dollars. The lands which they now own amount to 
more than twenty-two million acres, or more than thirty- 
four thousand square miles, an area greater than that of 
the five New England States, New Hampshire, Vermont, 
Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island; or equal 
to the whole of Ireland. | 


The World Outlook furnishes the following. statistics : 
Of the 67,245 Negroes who have engaged in_ professions, 
there are 500 authors, 578 dentists, 1,279 actors, 59 archi- 
tects, 123 chemists, 237 civil and mining engineers ; 2,000 
lawyers, judges, justices; 4,000 physicians and surgeons. 
2,500 trained nurses. There are 1,000 Negro inventors. 
who have been granted patents. They own 74 banks and 
398 newspapers, and there are 22,440 Negroes in the 
employ of the United States Government. 


Religious statistics show that Negroes have 45,000 
churches, with 4,800,000 communicants; 46,000 Sabbath- 
schools, with 2,225,000 pupils, and church property valued 
at $90,000,000. 


Asset or Liability 


“There is no gainsaying the fact that the Negro is a 
factor in the future of our country’s development. As 


The Romance of Home Missions 16, 


is the case with every other race which enters into our 
heterogeneous life, he is both an asset and a liability. And 
as such he is an influence: for evil or good in the life ot 
every other individual. But the deciding whether he 
will be more liability or more asset is with those who 
know how to transform the former into the latter. And 
this task and the vision essential for the doing of the 
task are largely in the day’s work of those who have 
claimed for themselves the blessings which come through 
personal faith in Jesus Christ. 


“The liability side of our problem must be paid for 
over and over, unless we change it. The longer it re- 
mains a liability, the more numerous the individual units 
which make it up, and hence the increasing magnitude 
of our task. The untaught, carefree field hand propa- 
gates his own kind, the while he remains more or less 
of an economic burden and one outside of the Kingdom 
of God. The vicious corner loafer in our cities will 
never provide a better condition than his own for his 
children. The lack of knowledge prevents the enlivening 
vision of nobler things. Liability he is, and liability he 
will remain, so long as his mind is not fired with the 
stimulus of thinking and his hand trained to carry out 
the impulses of that thought.’”—RatpuH WELLS KEELER. 


Despite obstacles and difficulties, the Negro has made 
commendable progress in education and in acquiring 
property. Education in itself is no guarantee of moral 
character. Germany is a conspicuous example of the 
highest educational attainments and the lowest moral 
standards. The acquisition of property, however, on the 
part of the Negro does have a tendency to force him to 
give bond to society for good behavior. Crime is or- 


136 The Romance of Home Missions 


dinarily characteristic of vagrants and the shiftless who 
have no permanent ties in the community. The highest 
safeguard and protection to society is the cultivation of — 
Christian character. Unfortunately the emotional type of 
religion characteristic of the Negro is not conducive tc 
ethics. It is this fact which justifies the effort of our 
Church and the ideals of Stillman Institute in training a 
native ministry for Colored people. 


Presbyterian Church U. S. 


From the very beginning of the Southern Presby-_ 
terian Church as a separate denomination, it has felt its 
responsibility to the Negro. In 1863 the General As- ~ 
sembly made the following statement: ‘‘The foreign 
mission problem is here reversed. Instead of having to 
send missionaries to the heathen, the heathen are brought 
to us, thus affording the opportunity of doing a foreign 
mission work on a gigantic scale, and under the most 
favorable auspices. A work altogether unique and which 
the Church in any other part of the world might well 
covet. The Lord hath set before us an open door; let 
us not fail to enter it.” 


Our present work for the Negro, however, may be 
said to have been begun in 1876 by Dr. Charles A. Still- 
man, who presented to the General Assembly an over- 
ture from the session of the Gainesville, Alabama, church, 
of which he was then pastor, urging the establishment 
of a school for the training of Colored ministers. The 
result was the founding of Tuscaloosa Institute, at Tusca- 
loosa, Alabama, where Dr. Stillman had gone, and wheré 
he served as superintendent of the school and as pastor 


The Romance of Home Missions 137 


of the First Church for almost twenty years. Upon his 
death, in 1895, the name was changed to Stillman 
Institute. 

At the conclusion of the Civil War, if the Churches 
of the South, a half century ago, had been awake to the 
opportunity and alive to their obligation to the Negro in 
his changed status of new environment, instead of leav- 
ing him entirely to the tuition and philanthropy of the 
North, there would not now confront us a race problem 
so acute. It is always difficult to recover lost ground, 
and it is today a task far more taxing, but the Church 
must attack it heroically and lose no time in meeting the 
situation. Educational and sociological means are indis- 
pensable, but entirely inadequate unless accompanied by 
the power of the Gospel of Christ issuing in changed 
lives. 


Romance of Life 


After this general statement of principles and the as- 
sembling of data as a basis, we now adhere to the pur- 
pose of this study to illustrate this phase of the work by 
personality. It would be comparatively easy to enum- 
erate conspicuous characters, such as Booker Washing- 
ton, educator, Major R. R. Moton, his successor, Paul 
Lawrence Dunbar, poet, and others of the same type; but 
it serves our purpose better to use the comparatively 
unknown, confining ourselves to members of our own 
Church, as specimens of Home Mission results. 


Maria Fearing 


In Anniston, Alabama, there lived a colored woman, 
of ordinary attainments and genuine piety, upon whose 


138 The Romance of Home Missions 


heart and conscience God laid the burden of her kins- 
people in the Dark Continent. She did not publicly en-. 
roll herself as a “volunteer” at some great convention, 
nor wreathe her brow with a halo; but in the quiet of her 
humble home she volunteered, where none but the Mas- 
ter heard her vow. Offering herself to the Committee 
of Foreign Missions, at Nashville, she asked to be sent 
as a missionary to the Congo. She was informed that 
she was past the age limit, fixed by the Committee for 
outgoing missionaries, and that she lacked the educational 
qualifications. | 

None but the Master knew the bitterness of her dis- 
appointment at being rejected by the authorities of her 
Church, but she having put her hand to the plow was 
not the kind to look back nor be stopped. She sold her 
humble home, her small worldly possessions, and tendered 
the money to the Foreign Mission Committee with the 
request that she be sent to Africa at her own expense 
and as a servant to the white missionaries in order that 
she might have the privilege of ministering to her people 
in the darkness of heathenism. Is there any parallel 
among the ranks of the white race? Her holy ambition 
was realized, and never did any church send out a more — 
consecrated, earnest missionary. to the heathen. Not 
many of us would care to exchange places in this world 
with this humble Negro woman; but in the day of final 
accounts, when rewards are distributed according to fidel- 
ity, not a few would be happy to exchange crowns with 
Maria Fearing. 


Wm. H. Sheppard 


At Warm Springs, Va., a colored woman, highly re- 
spected, who had served as maid at the baths of the 


The Romance of Home Missions Lag 


famous hotel for many years and had ministered to hun- 
dreds of the best people of this country, was the mother 
of an attractive boy. One day a lady laid her hands on 
his head and said: ‘William, I am praying that God 
will make of you a useful minister some day to your peo- 
ple.” This incident changed the current of his life. 
After graduating at Stillman Institute, he volunteered for 
Africa and went out with Lapsley—the pioneers to lay 
the foundation of our mission in the Congo. It was his 
loving ministrations and valuable companionship that 
made Lapsley’s work a signal success; and when Lapsley 
died, in that far-away land, Sheppard stood to the post 
of duty—several times at death’s door with malarial fever. 

His explorations of the unknown regions, among fierce 
cannibals, secured for him recognition by the British 
Government, which made him Fellow of the Royal Geo- 
graphic Society—an honor shared perhaps by no other 
member of the Southern Presbyterian Church. After 
years of conspicuous service, he has been transferred to 
work conducted by Rev. John Little, in Louisville, Ky., 
pastor of the largest Colored church in our Communion. 
With all his remarkable service and honors, he is noted for 
his simplicity of character, his humility, his fidelity and 
loyalty to the Cause of Christ. In the ranks of our min- 
istry there is no more useful servant of Christ. 





Sam Daly 


In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Sam Daly, an officer in the 
Colored Presbyterian Church, served the students in the 
State University for the usual “tips” given, and being 
of a frugal and provident disposition, deposited his money 
in the bank until his savings enabled him to purchase a 


140 The Romance of Home Missions 


horse and hack—before the days of the taxi. His earn- 
ing capacity having materially increased, his bank account 
grew accordingly and he was soon able to purchase a 
farm for his family about 15 miles from Tuscaloosa, 
in the country near Ralph, Alabama. It was poor, white 
sand land and only partially paid for. Scarcely had he 
begun farming operations till he saw in the Birmingham 
papers some allusion to sentencing several youthful Negro 
criminals to the chain-gang. He could not get the im- 
pression out of hts mind, that this was a criminal mistake 
of the legislature or of the court, and it grew into a con- 
viction and a purpose. Taking the train, he hastened to 
Birmingham, sought an interview with the judge and 
delivered himself of the following opinion: 


“Judge Feagin, I see where you are sentencing to the 
chain-gang Negro boys in their teens. I believe they 
will be worse criminals than ever when their terms ex- 
pire. I have come to ask if you will sentence them to my 
farm, and I will try and reform them.” 


The judge thought the experiment worth trying, and 
accordingly the number grew until it soon became the 
Sam Daly Reformatory. Rev. A. D. Wilkinson, colored 
Presbyterian minister, was assigned the task of religious 
supervisor, and in the discharge of his duties he lived 
with the boys, taught them part of the day in school and 
worked the other part on the farm, as well as preaching 
to them on Sabbath. 


After a few years of service, Sam Daly stood before 
the General Assembly, giving an account of his benevo- 
lent work, and closed with the statement that he had 
trained and returned to society over 200 Negro boys, 


The Romance of Home Missions 141 


and 90% had made good! He came to the General 
Assembly meeting at Atlanta, Ga., with the purpose of 
interesting the Assembly in the further enlargement of 
his reformatory. Immediately upon arriving in Atlanta 
he was taken suddenly ill. Applying to a drug store for 
relief, he was treated with criminal carelessness, whereby 
he became dangerously infected. Being entertained in 
the home of the local Colored Presbyterian minister, a 
Colored physician was called in, who still further damaged 
him by malpractice through incompetency. By this time 
information of his condition came to our notice, and we 
had him removed to the Grady: Hospital. The writer and 
Dr. Snedecor visited him from day to day, till becoming 
alarmed we employed one of our finest physicians of the 
city to give him additional and special attention, who 
promptly advised that the end was near. MHurrying to 
the hospital, the Secretary of Home Missions found the 
poor Negro dying. As the nurse partially aroused him 
by apprising him of the visit, he opened his eyes drowsily 
and said: “Oh, Dr. Morris, I want to go home,’ to 
which the reply was returned in a voice choking with 
emotion: “Yes, Sam, you are going home.” In a few 
moments he went “home’’; but what a noble record he 
left behind, of work well done! Who among us can 
leave behind such a legacy of an unfinished task; and 
who will be accounted worthy to stand by his side in the 
estimation of the Master, “by whom actions are 
weighed”’? 


Charles Birthright 


In the Southern part of Missouri was born Charles 
Birthright, once a slave, belonging to the Pankey family. 


142 The Romance of Home Missions 


After freedom came he continued to live on the place 
of his former owner, but opened a barber’s shop in the 
town of Clarkton, where he joined the Presbyterian 
Church. His savings were invested in bonds and lands 
along the White River, not considered valuable at the 
time of their purchase. He never learned to read, but 
his wife, “Bettie,” was of more than ordinary intelligence 
and acquired an ordinary education. They subscribed for 





Charles Birthright and wife and their hum- 
ble home in Missouri. This worthy Negro 
couple left the largest legacy to Home Mis- 
sions in all the history of the Presbyterian 


Church, U. S. 


the Church papers, and she read to him about Tuscaloosa 
Institute for educating Negro preachers, which greatly 
interested this worthy couple. As they had no children, 
after consulting Mr. David B. Pankey, his lifelong friend 
and advisor, he bequeathed his entire estate to Stillman 
Institute. 


After the death of himself and wife, the authorities 
of Stillman Institute, in accordance with the terms of the 
will, appointed Mr. H. B. Pankey, son of the executor— 


The Romance of Home Missions 143 


who had died in the meantime—as trustee of this estate. 
The court, in confirming the appointment, placed the trus- 
tee under a bond of $40,000, in view of the increased 
value of the property. In all the sixty-two years of the 
separate existence of the Southern Presbyterian Church, 
it is remarkable that a Negro left the largest legacy ever 
bequeathed to the cause of Home Missions! 


Rev. W. A. Youngs, Evangelist 


In the state of Alabama, a Negro boy attracted the at- 
tention of Mrs. R. M. Kirkpatrick, the widow of one of 
our beloved ministers; and she gave him religious in- 
struction and encouraged him to aspire to an education 
and useful service in behalf of his race. After gradu- 
ating at Stillman, he served very acceptably and success- 
fully as pastor of the Colored Presbyterian church in 
Mobile, Alabama. The time having arrived for an ad- 
vance movement in behalf of Colored Evangelization, 
Rev. W. A. Young was selected as the first General 
Evangelist for the Negroes in the South. He entered 
upon the work with great enthusiasm and developed into 
one of the most efficient ministers of the whole Church. 
He conducted great evangelistic meetings on the islands 
of the South Carolina coast, in which large numbers were 
converted. His evangelistic meetings. in Richmond, Va., 
led to the salvation of many of his people, and in the en- 
largement of the usefulness of the Seventeenth Street 
Mission, by winning the sympathetic interest of the Col- 
ored people of the city. His evangelistic services in con- 
nection with the great work of Rev. John Little at 
Louisville, Ky., were equally blessed. Rev. John Little 
testified that he was the equal of any evangelist in the 


144 The Romance of Home Missions 


Church, the greatest preacher ever produced by Stillman 
Institute. 

It was during the strain of this wonderful meeting that 
he suddenly collapsed. The Secretary of Home Missions 
insisted upon his taking a prolonged rest, but it was too 
late; and he was called to his reward. 





Rev. W. A. Young, the Man who sang the song, first Evangelist 
of the Presbyterian Church, U. S., to his race. The greatest 
preacher “Stillman” ever educated. 

Many Commissioners at various meetings of the Assem- 
bly will recall his marvelous singing, his touching solos, 
accompanied by the chorus of his companions. It was 
the feature of the popular meetings at night, bringing 


The Romance of Home Missions 145 


tears to many eyes; and he was called for again and 
again. Rev. W. H. Woods, D. D., contributed to the 
papers as expressing the mind of the Assembly, the fol- 
lowing beautiful tribute: 


He stood up there before us, 
He and his dusky throng, 
And. sang in quaint antiphony 
A moving, haunting song; 
The homely words and simple 
Were touched with some strange fire, 
And in that music pulsed and thrilled 
A deep and dear desire. 


“T want to be more holy,” 
Like a trumpet-voice it rang, 
And the chorus answered softly: 
“In my heart, my heart,” they sang. 


We were not asked to join it— 
Not ours that haunting tone; 

The black man’s soul was speaking there 
With a pathos all its own; 

And yet each time we heard it, 
The chorus wider grew— 

The mutest lips in all that throng 
Moved to that music, too. 


“T want to be like Jesus,” 
Well had he our longing read, 

And a sobbing, throbbing chorus 
Answered: “In my heart,” they said. 


And though our eyes were misty, 
We sat in deep content— 

The beauty and the glory are 
Not all to evil lent— 

And the song that most entrances 
The listening seraphs’ ears 

Is thrilled with the archangel’s lack-— 
The memory of old tears. 


“T want to be with Jesus,” 
Sang he; and where e’er they roam, 
All God’s saints in chorus answer, 
“Yes, with Jesus, and at home.” 


146 The Romance of Home Missions 


The Presbyterian Church U. S., compared with the 
large, wealthy, liberal Northern churches, is not con- 
tributing as large amounts nor conducting as extensive 
work, but is perhaps expending larger sums and carry- 
ing on a more important and successful work than any 
denomination in the South. If it had accomplished noth- 
ing more than produced such characters as Maria Fear- 
ing, Sam Daly, Charles Birthright, W. A. Young and 
Louise Meade, it would have been well worth the cost. 


Romance of Life Investment 


The recognized obligation of the Presbyterian Church 
to minister to the spiritual welfare of the Negro dates 
back at least a century. Before the Civil War the 
churches were provided with galleries in which the Col- 
ored people worshipped, being members of the same 
church as their owners. Attendance was compulsory. 
Among the earliest recollections of the author, as a child, 
was being required to remain with his parents for a sec- 
ond service, conducted especially for the Negroes after 
the white congregation had been dismissed and most of 
them had departed. On Sabbath afternoons his mother 
gathered her children and the little Negroes. together, 
read Bible stories to them, heard them recite the Cate- 
chism and taught them to sing hymns. This was a com- 
mon practice among pious people. 


Many of the leading Presbyterian ministers were faith- 
ful and zealous in preaching to the Negroes, among 
whom were such conspicuous men as Dr. Stiles and Dr., 
Jones, of Georgia; Dr. Flinn Dickson, of South Caro- 
lina; Dr. Stillman, of Alabama, and Dr. John B. Adger, 


The Romance of Home Missions 147 


at one time a missionary in Syria. The latter on one oc- 
casion, at the meeting of the General Assembly, made a 
liberal gift to Foreign Missions as a thank-offering for 
the conversion of a large number of his slaves. 


Dr. John L. Girardeau 


As an illustration, however, of life investment in be- 
half of the salvation of Negroes, Dr. John L. Girardeau 
occupies a class alone. It is doubtful if anyone would 
call in question the statement that he was the most elo- 
quent preacher of the great Church, which produced such 
distinguished orators as James H. Thornwell, Benjamin 
M. Palmer, Moses D. Hoge, and others. He gave his 
entire time to preaching in Zion Church, Charleston. 
S. C., for Negroes, refusing flattering calls to white con- 
gregations that he might minister to his brother in black. 
A delegation from one of the great churches of the North 
offered him every conceivable inducement to accept their 
charge, to which he quietly made response in the language 
of. the Shunamite: “I dwell among mine own people.” 
At night the galleries of his Negro church were jammed 
and packed with white people to hear this great orator 
preaching to Negroes. After the war he became profes- 
sor of Theology in Columbia Seminary, ably filling the 
chair of the scholarly Thornwell. 

It is interesting to note that in 1870, out of every 100 
people in the United States, 17 were members of the 
Protestant Church, which was but little better than the 
average among the Negroes at the close of the war. It 
is evident that slavery served as a great missionary in- 
stitution, if not intended as such—whatever may be said 
of the moral side of the question. It is worthy of special 


148 The Romance of Home Missions 


note that the finest Negro characters ever produced by 
ours, or any other church, were products of slavery— 
Maria Fearing, Sam Daly, Charles Birthright, and others 


Consecrated Service 


It would be impossible to give extended and proper 
credit to the men who have put their very life-blood into 
this service for Negroes—in some instances at the cost 
of persecution amounting practically to ostracism. Rev. 
Charles A. Stillman, a man of great ability, of his own 
accord, began teaching a class of Negroes in preparation 
for the ministry, without funds and with but little sym- 
pathy from his brethren; and his experiment developed 
into Stillman Institute, named in his honor, after his 
lamented death. 

The saintly O. B. Wilson, as Christlike a character as 
Barnabas, Fenelon, Thomas A. Kempis or Robert Murray 
McCheyne, answered the call of God and the Macedonian 
cry of the Negro for spiritual help. On one occasion he 
found a poor Negro suffering with such offensive disease 
his own people could not endure to remain in the room, 
yet Wilson bathed, fed and nursed him as tenderly and 
faithfully as the great Physician could have done. On 
another occasion he preached so powerfully on Lazarus at 
the rich man’s gate, applying it to the spiritual destitution 
of the Negro, that it compelled the pastor of Tattnall 
Square Presbyterian Church, Macon, Ga., to open a Sab- 
bath-school for Negroes, conducted by himself, not only 
without much assistance but in the face of strong opposi- 
tion. In the midst of his useful career as teacher in 
Stillman Institute while telephoning he was instantly killed, 
by lightning—a providence as mysterious as Lapsley dying 


The Romance of Home Missions 149 


on the banks of the Congo at the very beginning of his 
noble career. 


Rev. James G. Snedecor, LL. D., a man of noble blood, 
of wealth, of scholarly parts, was called into the ministry 
of the true Apostolic succession to such men as Stillman 
and Wilson, and was “not disobedient unto the heavenly 
vision,’ but devoted his life to the Negro. Perhaps no 
man felt more keenly the loneliness of his position, the 
lack of sympathy and support of the Church, but he never 
faltered even though the way was rough and steep, and 
though the cause at times seemed hopeless. As an expres- 
sion of their love and appreciation the Colored ministers 
and elders—called together by the Assembly and set off 
into “the Afro-American Synod”—at their very first meet- 
ing and of their own accord changed their name to “the 
Snedecor Memorial Synod.” 


Rev. John Little 


After this narration of the noble work of the sainted 
dead, we cannot restrain the impulse to give account of 
the unique labors of one who today is leading the forces of 
this country in initiative and activities for the Negro, 
paralleling in the religious sphere what Booker Washing- 
ton has accomplished in the educational world. 


Rev. John Little was born in Tuscaloosa, Ala., of a 
distinguished family, his father being Treasurer and Trus- 
tee of Stillman Institute, which created the atmosphere 
in which he grew up. It was perfectly natural that dur- 
ing his Seminary life at Louisville, Ky., he should have 
associated with himself several fellow students for es- 
tablishing and conducting a Sabbath-school in the most 





Above—Boys’ Dormitory remodeled. 
Below—Girls’ new Dormitory, Stillman Institute. 


The Romance of Home Missions 151 


destitute part of that city. In that enterprise he found 
his life work. The story of his Colored mission reads like 
fiction and is here given in his own language as contained 
in our Annual Report: 


“Twenty-five years of service have revealed a constantly 
enlarging field of opportunity and a constantly increasing 
response on the part of the Colored people. Six theologi- 
cal students from the Presbyterian Seminary in 1898 were 
willing to teach Sunday-school; twenty-three Colored 
pupils were willing to attend. Today an experienced force 
of workers keep the doors open seven days and six nights 
each week, and thousands of Colored boys and girls, men 
and women come to our buildings for instruction anc 
inspiration. 

“The work of the Presbyterian Colored Missions never 
ceases—it just changes. It conducts in its buildings 
through the whole year, a changing round of activities 
which touch life at many angles and steadily develop well 
rounded characters. There are classes in sewing and 
cooking for the girls, shoemaking and mending for the 
boys, basketball games and club work for both. The Daily 
Vacation Bible School, the bath house, and the playground 
present a program which provides instruction and recrea- 
tion.” 7 

This is a specimen and type of similar work being con- 
ducted at Richmond, Va., and Atlanta, Ga., and which 
should be multiplied indefinitely. 


Stillman Institute 


By far the most important work undertaken and con- 
ducted by the Church for the Negro is Stillman Institute. 
which has trained hundreds of Colored ministers in its 


152 The Romance of Home Missions 


history, many of them being Methodists and Baptists. 
Theological education is not, however, the sole purpose 
of its existence. It has a Boys’ Department and Girls’ 
School for training in domestic science, agricultural work, 
mechanical arts, and above all in Christian leadership. 


The Theological Department embraces the curriculum 
prescribed by the Church—a three-year course omitting 
Greek and Hebrew. The Literary Course consists of two 
years of Junior High and four years of Senior High 
School work. 


The plant consists of 110 acres of level fertile land in 
the suburbs of Tuscaloosa well adapted to every variety 
of crops, which enables the students to raise a large part 
of their supplies and gives them practical training in the 
science of farming. It has commodious, substantial brick 
dormitories, homes for the teachers and a new modern: 
barn and stalls for cattle. The entire plant is now worth 
$250,000 and can accommodate 150 students. 


Snedecor Memorial Synod 


As the result of our evangelistic effort to meet our 
responsibility in behalf of the Negro we now have the 
Snedecor Memorial Synod, consisting of four Presbyteries 
containing 41 ministers and 49 churches with a com- 
municant roll of about 2,000, having annual additions 
averaging about 200, and total contributions for 1922 of 
$10,649. If the Colored churches which are not connected 
with the Snedecor Memorial Synod were added, the com- 
municant list would be increased to 2,500 and the con- 
tributions to $12,000. In percentage of increase and per 
capita gifts the Negro Presbyteries compare favorably 


The Romance of Home Missions 153 


with their white brethren—if financial ability is taken into 
consideration. 


Rev. J. G. Snedecor, who devoted his life to the cause 
and left behind him the legacy of his unfinished work, is 
pre-eminently entitled to point the moral of this story 
in this, perhaps his last message to the Church: 


“The Negroes did not come to our country voluntarily. 
They were not seeking a happier home when they left 
Africa. We have made several grievous mistakes in our 
relation to the Negro. Let us not now make the deplor- 
able mistake of thinking that he is incapable of improve- 
ment or that it is best to keep him in ignorance. 


“The Southern Presbyterian Church has declared by 
numerous and repeated resolutions that moral instruction 
and religious influences are the prime needs of this weaker 
race. Our Church has sensibly seized the strategic posi- 
tion from which to attack their immorality—namely, an 
educated and godly ministry. 


“It is a fact that we really do not take the Negro 
seriously. We condemn the whole race for the crimes of 
individuals. We ignore the progress he has made, or 
condemn it as being along the wrong lines. We should 
not seek to shift our local troubles upon other parts of the 
country. Christian people should regard the Negro 
patiently, because God made him very much in the same 
mold as ourselves, and evidently endowed him with pos- 
sibilities for righteousness and immortality. For this rea- 
son, as the weaker man, he becomes the burden of the 
stronger. 


* “It 1s a reproach to the Christian people of the South 
that they have shunned this burden. It is time now to 


154 The Romance of Home Missions 


give some pause to the universal chorus of denunciation 
and criticism with which we assail the Negro. His foibles 
and crimes are now well understood. Grant that he is the 
greatest sinner in our body politic; the question of sanity 
and religion is—what are we going to do about it? 


“We trust that the effort now to quicken the missionary 
conscience of the Church may include within its beneficent 
results an increasing liberality toward this neglected race.” 


155 


ISSUONS 


The Romance of Home M 


‘BSsoo[vosn |, 


t 


9INWSUT ULBUpUS ‘ssvy 


is 
K 


) [BIEZo}OOy,L, 





BUILDING FOR ETERNITY 


Oh, where are kings and empires now 
Of old that went and came? 

But, Lord, Thy Church is praying yet, 
A thousand years the same. 


We mark her godly battlements, 
And her foundations strong; 
We hear within the solemn voice 

Of her unending song. 


For not like kingdoms of the world 
Thy holy church, O God! 

Though earthquake shocks are threatening her, 
And tempests are abroad. | 


Unshaken as eternal hills, 
Immovable she stands, 

A mountain that shall fill the earth, 
A house not made by hands. 


—ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE. 


156 


Chapter Six 


The 
ROMANCE of BUILDING 


An architect said to a churchman: “Our effort is to 
materialize the spiritual; the aim of the church is to 
spiritualize the material.’ The Department of Church 
Erection combines and promotes both ideals. It material- 
izes the spiritual by expressing in wood and stone certain 
ideals; and the temple of worship becomes a _ visible 
embodiment of invisible truth. It spiritualizes the ma- 
terial by converting it into a dwelling place of the Most 
High God, who though He “dwelleth not in temples made 
with hands,” yet accepts such as symbols of His presence 
and makes the house of God a means of communion with 
His spiritual .worshipers and a center of influence for 
Christianizing a community. The house of God is a silent 
witness to an invisible presence. It challenges the atten- 
tion of the community, gives the organization the reason- 
able guarantee of permanency and constitutes a common 
rallying place for the religious life of the people. 





Tha factors which enter into the making of a church 
are ordinarily three-fold: First of all, is the evangelistic 
effort out of which it is born, followed by the sustentation 
arm of support which upholds it in its weakness; but 
neither is more necessary than the Church Erection funds, 
which are essential at the psychological moment of its pre- 
carious existence. Whether it “sink or swim, survive or 
perish,” will depend largely upon securing a_ spiritual 
home. 


1$7 


158 The Romance of Home Missions 


The mutual problem which first confronts alike a new 
church and its Home Mission pastor is a house of worship. 
A homeless church is a nondescript, which will always be 
punctuated with a question mark, until it establishes its 
character and its right to exist by erecting for itself a 
church home. It is usually the supreme test of its virility. 
About 90 per cent of the churches of all denominations 
owe their existence to Home Missions and in most cases, 
other things being equal, owe their success to the securing 
of a house of worship at the critical period of their career 
Their first modest chapel is ordinarily a monument to the 
Home Mission Committee. Their subsequent magnificent 
edifice is to the credit of their own sacrifices and spiritual 
energy. 


Equipment Needs 


The greatest handicap of Assembly’s Home Missions is 
and has been for ten years lack of adequate equipment to 
conserve the results of our efforts. Every dollar spent 
in pioneer work, every additional nerve of energy called 
into service by any missionary, and every forward move- 
ment planned or pushed by the Committee, have a common 
objective, which is hindered or helped by the buildings 
essential to the highest achievements. They all speak one 
language and unite in one common plea—a clamor for 
equipment. It has been the dominant note of an unending 
song whose swelling chorus from all sections of the mis- 
sion field has become a plaintive wail, growing more in- 
sistant and distressing with every passing year. The prob- 
lem has now become more acute and the loss in results to 
the Kingdom of God more patent. 


The Romance of Home Missions 159 


Building Funds 


The first man with a vision of the possibilities of a 
Building Fund for promoting the erection of churches in 
behalf of small congregations was W. A. Moore, of 
Atlanta, Ga., who left a legacy of $5,000 to assist feeble 
churches in building, by small loans at 3 per cent. Many 
an Atlanta man has made an investment in real estate 
which afterward enriched him. Not one ever made such 
a profitable investment as W. A. Moore. His fund has 
promoted and aided in building over 100 churches. It 
they have an average value of $2,500, his investment rep- 
resents $250,000; and the original fund has increased in 
value to $7,000 and gives no sign of abatement. In the 
day of final accounts, who can estimate the value of his 
reward in its spiritual character ? 


The Manse Fund, begun at a later period by an appeal! 
for voluntary offerings, has had a similar career of suc- 
cessful building operations, while at the same time it has 
increased in value 25 per cent, indicating careful business 
management and the blessing of God. 


Semi-Centennial Fund 


Encouraged by the success and benefit accruing to its 
small funds for aiding weak churches the General As- 
sembly in 1911 authorized a larger Building Fund of 
$100,000, to commemorate the fifty years of its organic 
life, attended with such rich blessing of God on its minis- 
trations. This Semi-Centennial Fund is not limited to 
feeble churches and small amounts. The only limitation 
is the amount of the fund in the treasury. It is at the 
disposal of any church with a future, which must build at 


160 The Romance of Home Missions 


once beyond its present ability and to serve the community 
for perhaps a quarter of a century. 


Memorials and Annuities 


A practical method of great value, by means of which 
this fund is making substantial increase, is through me- 
morials and annuities. Relatives desiring to erect a more 
enduring monument than stone to the memory of some 
loved one can place any amount from $500 to an unlimited 
sum in the hands of the Executive Committee, which, 
while it 1s a constituent part of the Semi-Centennial Fund, 
is at the same time a separate entity and reported annually 
with name of the donor and the relative honored by the 
memorial. 

In case of an annuity, the donor places any sum, ac- 
cording to choice or ability, in the hands of the Committee 
and the donor draws interest for life. The annuity paid 
does not cost the Committee anything, for the churck 
borrowing pays interest and receives the same benefit as 
it would from funds loaned to it by the Committee. All 
parties are greatly benefited. The donor has made an in- 
vestment absolutely safe, which pays dividends for life. 
The local church has the use of the fund to enable it to 
secure adequate building, and the Semi-Centennial Fund 
secures an increase which will perpetuate the good work 
of the donors long after they have gone to their eternal 
reward. 


Hunter Memorial Fund 


Mr. J. Montgomery Hunter, of Louisville, Ky., has 
deeded to the Executive Committee real estate valued at © 
$70,000 to be used as a permanent fund to be known as the 


The Romance of Home Missions 161 


“Ann Morgan Hunter and J. Montgomery Hunter South- 
ern Presbyterian Home Mission Memorial Fund,” for the 
purpose and conditions set forth as follows: 


“This Fund is to be devoted exclusively to the building 
of country and small village Presbyterian churches, the 
same not to cost over Three Thousand Dollars ($3,000) 
complete, exclusive of lot, of which this Memorial Fund 
is to contribute one-half only, and the local people are to 
contribute one-half of said cost and in addition are to 
provide a lot for said church of not less than one-half 
acre of land; the said churches are to be kept insured for 
at least 75 per cent of their total cost of building; the 
said Executive Committee is to exercise its judgment as 
to requiring all or any part of said gift or loan to be repaid 
by said churches, and all of said churches are to be 
devoted absolutely and exclusively to the worship of God 
Almighty and the preaching of the glorious Gospel of His 
Christ; no secular entertainment or exercises of any kind 
or character, or flags and secular emblems, are to be 
allowed in said churches and so understood and agreed 
to by said church people—marriages and funerals of 
course excepted. If a church elects to change its name 
from the Memorial to some other, it may do so by repay- 
ing to the Executive Committee the amount invested in it 
which was received from this Memoria] Fund.” 


Mr. Hunter has since increased his gift by deeding ad- 
ditional real estate to the Executive Committee for Church 
Erection and has graciously removed some of the restric- 
tions in order that this fund may be greatly enlarged in its 
efficiency and usefulness. 


162 The Romance of Home Missions 


A minister of our Church, who has rendered conspicu- 
ous Home Mission Service in four Synods, recently 
created a Memorial Fund of $10,000 to his honored 
father. It will be loaned at 4 per cent, and will doubtless 
duplicate the splendid record of the Moore Fund. His 
modesty requires that his name be withheld for the present. 
Instead of stone that disintegrates and decays, this monu- 
ment will consist of living churches in ever increasing 
numbers whose houses of worship will rear their spires 
heavenward and whose pulpits- will proclaim the everlast- 
ing gospel of the Son of God in the ages to come. 


The Romance of Results 


One of the most vivid recollections of the Secretary 
of Home Missions dates back to his early embarrass- 
ments. From El Paso, Texas, came a communication 
signed by fourteen individuals asking if the Executive 
Committee would encourage their organizing themselves 
into a church. The crux of the whole matter hinged on 
a small appropriation for assisting in building a temporary 
chapel involving an outlay of only $300. The entire an- 
nual income of the Committee at that time scarcely ex- 
ceeded $50,000, and each small additional item gave the © 
Committee pause. The Chairman opposed the grant, and 
the debate was exciting; but finally with some misgiving 
~ and with divided counsels it was answered affirmatively, 
and “Westminster” church came into being. Their little 
structure soon gave place to a brick chapel costing $3,000. 
It has had a magic growth, reaching a total membership 
of 400, which with the aid of the Assembly’s Committee 
erected a permanent house of worship valued now at 


$30,000. 


The Romance of Home Missions 163 


It has had such phenomenal development under the wise 
and efficient leadership of its pastor, Rev. Watson M. 
Fairley, that it is more appropriate to allow him to give 
a summary of results: 


“The city of El Paso has in ten years expanded from 
a town of 39,000 to a city of over 83,000. The banks, 
stores, hotels, hospitals, schools, and all public utilities 
have with great difficulty provided for ‘the abnormal 
growth. The residential district now extends over five 
miles from the down town centers where all the churches 
were originally built. ‘Westminster’ is trying to avoid 
the fatal mistake of expecting all the Presbyterians and the 
unchurched to come to it. With the help of the Assembly’s 
Home Mission Committee a new church, ‘Manhattan,’ has 
been built at a cost of $20,000. A new organization of 
about 100 members takes shape and a new pastor comes 
to take charge of the colony. Another Mission, ‘East- 
minster, has been started. At a cost of $6,300 a lovely 
bungalow has been built and enough ground secured for 
a church building. 


“Manhattan Church began the year 1922 with 125 mem- 
bers, and a building debt of $4,000. By the end of the 
year she had paid off the debt and put over $1,000 in 
improvements and equipment; increased her membership 
to 190, with 195 in actual attendance at Sunday-school 
and started on an $800 additional story to the Sunday 
school room. They have outgrown their two-story Sun- 
day-school building in less than a year and have exceeded 
their budget on all benevolences. This church gives every 
promise of being one of our leading churches in the West 
in a few years. ! 


164 The Romance of Home Missions 


“The Mexican church has grown from 22 members to 
50 in less than a year, has a flourishing Sunday-school of 
100 enrolled and a Mission day school of 49 children, and 
an afternoon Sunday-school of 47. <A _ bright young 
Mexican boy who was baptized eight months ago, has 
been received into the Presbytery as a candidate for the 
ministry and is now at school. Two other bright boys 
will go to our Texas-Mexican school. Rev. A. Fern- 
andez, the pastor, says with $1,000 he could start four 
additional mission schools in connection with his church. 
This is the cheapest and most valuable work that our 
Church can do. 


“Eastminster chapel where Mrs. L. C. Majors has been | 
conducting a Sunday-school and general mission work 
has developed until we are now ready to organize it into 
a church if we can handle the financial problem. We have 
there at a cost of $6,200 four lots and a nice new bungalow 
used as a combined manse and Sunday-school room. They 
have now about 65 in Sunday-school each Sunday, prayer 
meeting, 15 in Christian Endeavor, and a supply preaching 
there each Sunday morning and evening. Twelve have 
recently joined the Church. I think we could organize — 
with 60 members.” 


Investments in Texas oil fields have made many fabul- 
ously rich. The $300 invested by the Assembly’s Home 
Mission Committee at El Paso scarcely twenty years ago, 
shows a dividend to its credit of four churches having a 
combined membership of 720, property valued at $70,000, 
with total annual contributions aggregating $23,500. No, 
this is not fiction. It is real romance in church life. 


The Romance of Home Missions 165 


Hugo, Oklahoma 


Twenty years ago, Hugo was an insignificant village, 
consisting largely of one room shacks hastily constructed 
by investors to hold “claims” against their respective “‘lots”’ 
in the prospective town. The Presbyterian church was 
organized with four members, constantly shifting, but 
having a continuous though precarious life. Rev. R. P. 
Walker, a young minister of South Carolina, had the 
courage to take unto himself a wife and the greater 
temerity to “volunteer for Home Missions”—on “nothing 
certain a year.’ The Committee sent him to Hugo and 
invested $600 to build him a church “in keeping with the 
importance of the town.”’ 


At our request Rev. R. P. Walker gave us an account 
of his work at Hugo: 


“About twenty years ago Dr. Morris sent the writer 
out from South Carolina to Hugo, Okla., as a Frontier 
missionary. Hugo was one of the Government town sites 
in what was then Indian Territory, and had been begun 
about a year before when the A. & C. crossed the Frisco 
at this place. Hugo, as we saw it that morning, was com- 
posed of tents and “shacks,” small boxed rooms built to 
hold the lots. The stores were cheap board structures, 
and there was neither church building nor school house 
in the town. We visited around and found five Presby- 
terians. Two of these were a young elder named Peters 
and his good wife. They opened their hearts and home 
to us and were the chief support of the little organiza- 
tion. The Presbyterians owned two lots with two “shacks” 
thereon. In one of these we spent our first year in Hugo. 
Mrs. Walker was not burdened with an extensive house. 


166 The Romance of Home Missions 


Bec 


or 


ne 


si 
% 


ov 


Above—The new church at Hugo in process of erection. 
Below—Manse at Hugo, Okla., occupied by Rev. R. P. 
while he built four churches. 





The Romance of Home Missions 167 


This manse was composed of one room 14 x 14 feet, and 
a shed-room half the size. It was not encumbered with 
such non-essentials as ceiling, paper and paint. So it 
has been truthfully said: “The sun could smite us by day 
and the moon by night.’ The “meeting house’ for all 
denominations was a rough board room 40 x 60 feet, and 
there I preached for two years. Often Peters and I were 
the only Presbyterians present. In this house we organ- 
ized a Sabbath School several months later, ordained and 
installed officers, baptized infants, and received enough 
members to build a church. 


“During the first year in Hugo we were so fortunate 
as to find two sources of income other than our little 
congregation. One was the “city school.” The town was 
not incorporated, but the people wanted a school. So I! 
rented the ‘meeting house,’ employed two lady teachers, 
and opened with something over a hundred scholars. In 
the spring about the time school closed, another business 
began to flourish for me, the only resident pastor. I have 
never seen such a matrimonial epidemic as struck Hugo 
that spring and summer. How they did come for me to 
‘say the ceremony—morning, noon and night! At the 
houses, on the streets, in the stores, and one couple had me 
go down to Red River and marry them on the ‘flat’ as they 
crossed over, because they had a Texas license. 


“Tt would be hard to find a more unpromising prospect 
than Hugo was twenty years ago, but great has been the 
change in these years! Today Hugo has a population of 
over 10,000 people, with splendid brick business houses, 
flourishing banks, fine hotels, a public school building that 
cost $20,000, an electric light plant, a number of manu- 


168 The Romance of Home Missions 





Six original Churches in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, 
built by Rev. S. M. Glasgow 


The Romance of Home Missions 169 


facturing industries, concrete sidewalks, a thorough water 
system, and four handsome churches. The Presbyterians 
built the first church in the town.” 


In his brief ministry there he built four churches: 
Hugo, which now has a membership of 300 and a house 
of worship costing $60,000; Marietta which has a manse 
and creditable church; Bennington, the first church build- 
ing erected in the town, and Milburn—the latter being the 
only one which has not had successful growth. Their com- 
bined membership is 640 and their present property is 
valued at $75,000. 


Rio Grande Valley 


Fourteen years ago the Secretary of Home Missions 
was invited to visit Western Texas Presbytery where Rev. 
W. M. Doggett,"Evangelist, had organized 15 churches in 
as many months, and where Rev. S. M. Glasgow had but 
recently begun work as a volunteer. It was a most memor- 
able ride up and down the Rio Grande Valley where little 
villages were springing into existence. As a result of this 
personal investigation small appropriations were granted 
for buildings at Harlengen, San Benito, Mercedes, Donna, 
McAllen and Mission—six chapels in all. Aladdin’s lamp 
would be needed to duplicate results as may be judged by 
the following account written by Mr. Glasgow at our 
request: 


“T entered the work in the Lower Rio Grande Valley 
in 1909. The only beginnings which preceded my arrival 
were two church organizations at Mercedes and McAllen 
with some fourteen members each. They had no Sunday 
schools and no buildings of any kind. In the years 1910 


170 The Romance of Home Missions 


to 1913, by the unfailing and generous co-operation of the 
Home Mission Committee of the Assembly, buildings were | 
erected at McAllen, Mission, Donna, Mercedes, San 
Benito and Harlengen. Your Committee invested in these 
six buildings donations $1,100 and loans $2,300. It 
would have been quite impossible to have set up and car- 
ried out such a building Campaign on that far frontier 
apart from such prompt and generous co-operation on the 
part of Assembly’s Home Missions. 


“How marvelous to see what God has wrought! Out 
of these tiny beginnings these six churches now have a 
membership of over 700 and contributed to all Causes 
last year around $18,000. Out of them have grown four 
additional churches which give us a present membership 
in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of approximately 900 
souls. There are now 9 well equipped church buildings 
in that section, and several comfortable manses have been 
secured for the resident pastors. Last year the ingather- 
ing of these churches totalled 188, of whom 95 were 
received on profession of their faith in Christ. 


“Unless one can visualize the sordid materialism in a 
frontier section, the mad rush for land and money, the 
consuming interest in canals and roads and town sites, the 
cosmopolitan, heterogeneous population, the tremendous 
surge of godlessness, with old ties broken and new ties 
unformed by home seekers, it would be quite impossible 
to measure the meaning of the prompt and generous finan- 
cial aid of the Assembly’s Home Mission Committee in the 
erection of houses of worship. It was truly an ‘Invest- 
ment in Futures’ and the dividends in souls and in gifts 
to the Kingdom have well warranted the faith of this’ 
great Committee. 


The Romance of Home Missions 171 


“There is no physical factor in Home Mission Work 
comparable to a house of worship. The sense of loyalty, 
the acute feeling of responsibility, the true and strong 
religious sentiment and the constant and sustained preach- 
ing and teaching of the Word cannot be secured in any 
adequate measure apart from a house of worship. Only 
the accumulating issues of the years will fully declare the 
measure and meaning of the Christian faith, foresight, and 
investment of our Assembly’s Committee in its Western 
Frontier work.” 


Oklahoma City 


Among the first places visited after entering upon the 
work, the Secretary investigated Oklahoma City, at a time 
when Mangum Presbytery had no existence, and there 
was not a church of our denomination in all Oklahoma 
Territory. An advertisement was inserted in Saturday’s 
paper that on the afternoon of the next day the Secretary 
would meet any persons at the Methodist Church to con- 
sider organizing a Southern Presbyterian Church. To 
his amazement and delight twenty-five persons appeared. 
The existence of the majority of them in the city was 
unknown, and they were all practically strangers to each 
other. In such circumstances the church began its or- 
ganized life. A public hall was rented for Sabbath-school 
and for occasional services by Rev. W. F. Galbraith, 
Evangelist, who had discevered some of the membership. 
The church grew rapidly and the Executive Committee 
assisted in the erection of a modest house of worship. It 
had a series of misfortunes which retarded its growth, 
but nevertheless as a result of the investment, the city has 
now two Southern churches with a combined membership 


172 The Romance of Home Missions 


of 400, property valued at $40,000 and annual contribu- 
tions of $6,620, notwithstanding the presence there of 
three Northern churches—one alone having 2,700 mem- 
bers. 


These are specimens: Others could be cited as striking 
in character and as conspicuous in results—but for limited 
space and for the author’s purpose to confine illustrations 
chiefly to cases personally known to him. 


Forty Years of Building 


Mrs. Eleanora Berry Smith, who for twelve years 
rendered conspicuous service in the Home Mission Offce, 
with painstaking care compiled a valuable list of the 
churches, built in the past forty years by assistance of the 
Committee, which with their location on the accompanying 
map, speak in eloquent terms of successful achievements. 


Since 1882, Assembly’s Home Missions has assisted 663 
congregations in securing houses of worship or manses 
In all, 520 donations have been made, and 231 loans— 
many churches received both loan and donation. 


Some of the churches cannot be located. Some were 
mission chapels of strong churches, which have since 
developed into congregations, some have been dissolved, 
some have combined with other congregations, some have 
changed their name, and some have been dismissed to the 
Northern Presbyterian Church by comity arrangements, 
or otherwise. Those that can be identified reported a 
membership last year of 38,719, and gave for all purposes 
$976,330, something over $25 per member, which is not — 
far below the average for the entire church. Considering 


173 


SSUONS 


The Romance of Home Mi 


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B ZuIINDag UI ‘UOT}BUOGq JO UOT Aq paj}sIssY YoINY) & sjuasaiday J0q Yyory 
*SUOISSIJA OUIOFY SA[GUIaSSW JO YIOAA UOI}D9Iq YOINYD jo dey 





174 The Romance of Home Missions 


the fact that many of these churches are still weak, strug- 
gling Home Mission churches, this is a remarkable record. 


With returns from only about half of the Presbyteries 
we find that these churches have produced 35 ministers, 9 
foreign missionaries, 8 candidates now in training, and 
12 home missionaries or religious workers in America. 
Each, if given voice, could tell a wonderful story of 
romance—in its struggles, sacrifices, successes, and souls 
saved. Eternity will tell the tale. 


Lost opportunities are as abundant in evidence; and 
there are others which challenge attention today in eminent 
peril of being lost by delay. One such is hereby recited 
in language as true as realistic: 


Specimen 


“It was late Saturday afternoon. A strangér stepped 
off the train with a look of bewilderment. ‘Surely this 
little thriving, modern city of at least eight thousand 
people is not being built in the center of the once-thought- 
to-be-arid region of the West?’ As his taxi covered the 
distance between the depot and the first-class hotel of the 
most modern appointments, the expression of surprise on 
his face became more pronounced as his eyes fell upon one 
substantial brick business house after another, which gave 
the appearance of permanency to the entire community. 


“He enjoyed an early evening meal. Seated directly 
in front of him at the table was an enthusiastic citizen 
possessing the spirit of the booster. With dinner ended 
this local citizen anxious for the stranger to view the rapid 
developments and wonderful possiblities of his city and’ 
country, ordered his car and the two rode until dark. 


The Romance of Home Missions 175 


“The stranger was permitted to miss nothing. He was 
taken by all the modern school buildings, several beautiful 
churches, two thoroughly equipped sanitariums, many of 
the most attractive residences, and then the oil mills, com- 
presses, cotton gins, power plants, and some thirty or more 
wholesale houses which distribute their wares to a large 
district. Upon reaching the hotel, the stranger said, ‘I 
do not remember that you pointed out the Presbyterian 
church to me during our ride.’ 


“*The Presbyterian Church? Let me see; ‘Oh yes,’ 
said the local citizen, ‘I believe that is the Presbyterian 
church on Fourteenth Street, but I hardly thought it 
worth while to drive by. You see, several years ago they 
started to build on lots which I considered the best location 
in town for a church building. They erected the first unit 
of a brick building, which gives them a little box about 
thirty by forty-five feet, and they are using that for 
church purposes. J have never known why they suspended 
their building operations, unless they ran short of money. 
It seems that the other denominations have accepted the 
challenge of the West, and have sent men and money into 
this rapidly growing territory. I have never understood 
why the wealthy old Presbyterian Church has not done 
the same.’ 


“Sunday morning found the stranger, a member of the 
Southern Presbyterian Church back home, in the little 
unattractive and unfinished church building on Fourteenth 
Street. The Sunday-school period that day would not 
soon be forgotten. His one comment at the conclusion of 
the period was, ‘A wonderful Sunday-school working 
under the most exasperating circumstances !’ 


176 The Romance of Home Missions 


“In the church service the stranger anxiously awaited 
the message of the hour, the subject being ‘The Greatest 
Need of the Local Church.’ The young pastor, after 
enumerating a large number of outstanding needs, with 
special emphasis on the spiritual, concluded with the bold 
statement: ‘The greatest immediate need of this church, 
and most of the other Presbyterian churches of the great 
Southwest, is a modern, attractive and well equipped 
church building.’ The stranger was thrilled by the ap- 
parently enthusiastic reception of that challenge; but what 
could one hundred and fifty people of moderate means do 
towards meeting the needs for an adequate church build- 
ing, not only for today but for the years to come! 


“In passing out of the church that day our stranger 
friend warmly grasped the hand of the pastor and said to 
him, ‘I heartily agree with you. It would pay the South- 
ern Presbyterian Church large dividends in dollars. and 
cents, as well as in every other way, to show ker interest 
by helping these western churches get on their feet. I, for 
one, am ready to place more of my money on God’s altar 
to be used in the erection of MISES church buildings in 
the great Southwest!’ ”’ 


The foregoing story does not exaggerate the conditions; 
neither does it portray an unusual picture in Texas. The 
Presbyterian Church is losing some almost indescribable 
opportunities in the Southwest. May the Church at large 
make haste for God. 


Possibilities, Past and Passing 


Dr. Homer McMillan, who travels extensively and + 
knows conditions perhaps better than almost any other 


The Romance of Home Missions L7A 


man, makes the following calculation, which is by no 
means overdrawn: 


““The church that builds most grows most.’ 


“Church Erection is only another way of saying ‘church 
expansion.” The lack of an adequate Church Building 
Fund has been the greatest handicap in the growth and 
development of the Southern Presbyterian Church. 


“We rejoiced when it was announced at the last As- 
sembly that our membership had reached 400,000. If 
the Assembly’s Committee had been given the means with 
which to accept a fourth of the promising opportunities 
it was compelled to decline during the past 25 years, we 
could just as easily have 500,000 members who, at the 
present rate of giving, would increase our benevolent con- 
tributions $1,489,000 per year. 

“How many additioral missionaries would $1,489,000 
support? Church extension is fundamental to our world- 
wide missionary program. 

“Tf the Assembly's Committee had $50,000 for building 
purposes, it could enter immediately ten important centers 
of exceptional opportunity and plant new churches that 
would soon become self-supporting, and return the loans 
for investment in other centers; and the fund would go 
on multiplying and reproducing itself throughout the years. 

“In a city in the Southwest, there is a little American 
church situated at the edge of a large Mexican center. A 

ttew blocks distant there is a Mexican congregation, 
worshipping in a small rented cottage, entirely unsuited 
and wholly inadequate for its needs. 

“If the Committee had $5,000 for the purpose it could 
purchase the building, admirably located for the Mexican 


178 The Romance of Home Missions 


work, and re-establish the American church 20 blocks 
away in the center of a rapidly growing residential section 
where in a few years it would become a strong, self- 
supporting church, contributing to all the causes of the 
Assembly. This small sum invested at this place would 
put two churches on the way to growth and prosperity. 
It was hard to tell these two little groups of Presbyterians 
that the great parent Committee, whose duty it is, and 
whose privilege it should be, to care for its needy children, 
can do nothing for them.” 


Cases of this kind are piled up in the Home Mission 
office and pouring in daily in a constant stream. The 
past two years have witnessed the greatest era of church 
building in the history of the Church. This is due perhaps 
to the fact that all buildings were stopped by the world 
war and now everywhere there arises the necessity for 
crowding into a few years the work which naturally 
should have extended over the greater part of a decade. 
Never was there such a demand on Church Erection 
Funds as at present. Applications are on file in the Home 
Mission office for assistance amounting to $250,000 which 
were necessarily declined owing to lack of funds. This 
one item will doubtless have a far reaching and disastrous 
Alka! on the progress of the whole church. 


The need for an adequate fund for church buildings has 
become so acute that the Assembly’s Advisory Home Mis- 
sion Council, composed of Synodical Home Mission Chair- 
men or Superintendents, and representing all phases of 
Home Missions, meeting in Montreat, without any hint 
or suggestion from any representative of the Assembly’s * 
work, unanimously passed a resolution that the next 


The Romance of Home Missions 179 


great forward movement of the Church should be for an 
adequate church building fund for the use of the As- 
sembly’s Executive Committee : 


“Tt is the judgment of this. Council that the time has 
come in the providence of God when it is imperatively 
necessary that we make some large and adequate provision 
for Church and Manse Erection beyond anything the 
Church has previously known. 


“Tn our judgment this is a need of our city boulevards 
and prosperous towns as well as, and, in many cases more, 
than our back country and mountainous districts. If we 
are adequately to meet our task, the Home Mission Com- 
mittee of our Church must be provided with a fund suffi- 
ciently large to help finance large enterprises by gifts, or 
loans at low rate of interest, as well as to house the little 
newly organized churches in our mountain or back country 
sections. 


_ “We heartily endorse and commend to the whole Church 

the movement now on in the General Assembly for an 
adequate Equipment Fund, and any similar movements 
which are in progress, or may be undertaken by the Synods 
or Presbyteries to meet their own individual needs.” 


The Campaign for an Equipment Fund gives the Ex- 
ecutive Committee fond hope that the Church is beginning 
to appreciate the fact, increasingly evident, that the 
largest denominational expansion is conditioned on an 
adequate Building Fund, and this has inspired the As- 
sembly’s Committee with courage to experiment in a com- 
pelling forward movement—beginning at San Antonio, 
Texas. 


180 The Romance of Home Missions 


The city of San Antonio contends for the first place in 
the state, not only in population but in strategic position 
and corresponding importance to the cause of Christ.. It 
dominates southwest Texas and is the center of the great 
Mexican population. The Presbyterian Church has 
notoriously not kept pace with the growth of the city and 
the opportunity for serving the Kingdom of Christ. Ap- 
pealing need and compelling opportunity constituted such 
an urge that the Home Mission Committee of the Presby- 
tery challenged the Assembly’s Committee to a joint 
forward movement that would attract the attention of 
the whole Church. Ministers and business men banded 
themselves together, purchased properties in strategic and 
rapidly developing sections of the city, relocated the 
churches and raised $30,000 to carry out their progressive 
plans on condition the Assembly’s Committee would match 
their gift. The challenge was promptly and heartily ac- 
cepted. It is a story of romance which has a future 
history. 


If the whole Church catches fire with the enthusiasm 
for building, it will mean similar Campaigns in other im- 
portant cities and the greatest growth in all its history and 
a corresponding reflex action in the Kingdom of God. 


Will individuals, societies and churches spread the con- 
tagion till the whole Church feels the thrill of a new 
spiritual life? 


The Romance of Home Missions 181 





Church erection 
funds will 
bear fruit— 


“some thirty, 
some sixty, 
and some 
an hundred 


fold.” 


BRING ME MEN 





Bring me men to match my mountains; 
Bring me men to match my plains— 

Men with empires in their purpose, 
And new eras in their brains— 

Pioneers to clear Thoughts marshlands, 
And to cleanse dark Error’s fen; 

Bring me men to match conditions— 
Bring me men! 


Bring me men to match my forests, 
Strong to fight the storm and blast, 

Branching toward the glowing future, 
Rooted in the fertile past. 

Bring me men to match my valleys, 
Tolerant of sun and snow, 

Men within whose fruitful purpose 
Time’s consummate blooms shall grow— 

Bring me men! 


Bring me men to match my rivers, 
Continent cleavers, flowing free, 
Drawn by the eternal madness 
To be mingled with the sea; 
Men of oceanic impulse, 
Men whose moral currents sweep 
Toward the wide in-folding ocean 
Bring me men! 


182 


Chapter Seven 


The 
ROMANCE of PERSONALITY 


Human personality is the potent instrumentality by 
which omnipotent power moves the world. In the physical 
universe the forces are scientific—heat and cold, germina- 
tion and disintegration, gravitation and electricity. In the 
realm of thought the agencies are intellectual—intuition 
and reason. In the religious sphere the influences which 
change the moral complexion of society are spiritual— 
divine and human personality. 


The Philosophy of History 


In the strictest sense there is no such thing as the history 
of a nation. In each case it is the record of individual 
lives, personal achievements, and of a very insignificant 
number compared with the nation. As a matter of fact, 
national life is the incarnation of the thought, will and 
influence of its leadership. The philosophy of history 
deals not primarily with the narrative of events and deeds 
but with the great personalities behind the scenes, which 
bring to pass these events that fill the pages of history. 


Moses, the Hebrew lawgiver, placed the stamp of his 
personality on Israel’s National life. The Prophets at a 
later period modified and moulded Jewish thought. As a 
consequence, forever afterward their appeal has been 
uniformly to the authority of “the Law and the Prophets.” 
Just a few individuals, Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, gave 
the classical cast to the Grecian mind. Julius Caesar and 


183 


184 The Romance of Home Missions 


his type were largely responsible for the militarism of the 
Roman Empire—still lingering in their. legitimate succes- 
sors, Bonaparte and Kaiser William. John Knox lives 
forever in Scottish character—the embodiment of a rug- 
ged, uncompromising personality. It is often asserted 
that great crises make strong men. It is more frequently 
true that men make the crises, which change the map of 
the world and affect the destiny of nations. 


The Sphere of Missions 


In no department of human history has personality 
played a more conspicuous part than in the sphere of 
Missions. The history of the Church is a history of 
Missions, which in its turn is an account of striking per- 
sonalities. In the plan and providence of God a great 
cause is almost invariably identified, and inextricably 
bound up, with the personality of an individual. The 
name of Robert Morrison is a synonym for’ the early 
struggle of Christianity to affect an entrance into China; 
Wm. Carey and Adoniram Judson, for pioneering in 
India; David Livingston for heroic adventure in South 
Africa; Mary Slessor for romantic service in Cglabar; 
Dan Crawford, for “Thinking Black” in the Dark Con- 
tinent; and the list might be extended indefinitely. 


In the department of Home Missions the list is exten- 
sive, though not so conspicuous with the glamour of the 
radiant halo. Sheldon Jackson, kneeling with a few com- 
panions on a high bluff having a commanding view of the 
West, leading them in prayer as he dedicated them and 
himself to the task, is a commanding personality, which 
will be forever associated with the winning of the West. ° 
J. J. Read and W. J. B. Lloyd, investing their lives in 


The Romance of Home Missions 185 


service for Choctaw Indians, sharing their simple life in 
the wigwam, or wrapped in a riding blanket, sleeping in 
the open on their journey across the prairie wherever the 
shadows of the night overtook them, are specimens of 
adventure for Christ regardless of success or failure—an 
innumerable throng whose lives are crowded with romance, 
though comparatively unknown, reserved for “the Crown- 
ing Day’ when the awards will be distributed not accord- 
ing to human estimates but the divine standards of success. 


The Unknown Great 


In the beautiful Cemetery at Arlington, within full view 
of the National Capitol, sleeps an American hero, “the 
Unknown Soldier,’ whose blood possibly stained “Flan- 
ders Field.” In the main aisle of Westminster Abbey 
close by Sir Isaac Newton and David Livingston, Eng- 
land has enshrined her “Unknown Soldier’ who fell on 
some battle field of France. In a still more strikingly 
appropriate place France has interred her “Unknown 
Soldier” beneath the Arch of Triumph, which com- 
memorates the illustrious victories of Napoleon. Was 
there ever greater contrast in everything conceivable? One 
sent thousands to death to gratify his ambition for great- 
ness, winning for himself both fame and infamy. The 
other died himself at his country’s command, in the noblest 
sense a hero—‘‘nameless here forevermore.’ As the ages 
pass these three are destined to become the most popular, 
the most frequented and the most honored shrines of 
earth. Myriads will stand with uncovered heads in their 
presence and in the secret chambers of thought will 
meditate upon the life and circumstances of each: What 
was his personality? Where was his home? What, the 


186 The Romance of Home Missions 


character of his parentage? Were the circumstances of 
his life humble or did he move in an exalted sphere? 
What was the method of his death?- Was he also a 
soldier of the Cross? As the tide of life ebbed on some 
distant field of battle and he thought of the grief of her 
who gave him birth, was he sustained by the sweet. satis- 
faction, “I have fought a good fight; I have finished my 
course; I have kept the faith?’ Will he wear a crown 
of glory? 


Not alone on gory battle fields, but in other “bivouacs 
of life’ many an unknown man has been “a hero in the 
strife.’ The newspaper contains many an instance of 
heroism that is worthy of permanent emblazonment on’ - 
the page of history and yet receives only a passing notice. 
In a southern city two men went down into a manhole and 
were overcome with sewer gas. A man was let. down on 
a rope to rescue them, and the rope proved too short and 
the call came up for more rope. No more rope was at 
hand and yet relief must come quickly. “A giant Negro 
volunteered,” so runs the newspaper account, “to make 
it long enough.” He lay across the manhole and let the 
rope down with his right arm. Then he hauled up the 
body with one arm until the other men could grab the 
rope and haul it out.” A second man was recovered in the 
same way. “The Negro who made the rescue possible,” 
concludes the newspaper article, “had left the scene wher 
the police and reporters arrived. No one learned his 
name.” Of all the men who had assisted in the daring 
and dangerous rescue, the newspaper adds, “They didn’t 
consider themselves heroes.” Human nature is full of 
the possibilities of such unconscious heroism, and it comes’ 
out in countless ways that receive no public notice. They 


The Romance of Home Missions 187 


don’t “consider themselves heroes,” and of many a one the 
only record is, ““No one learned his name.’ The ministry 
and missionary service furnish their full share of these 
unnoticed heroes. 

In striking contrast with the heroism of this character, 
a young minister of another denomination on one occasion 
said to the writer: “I am a ‘volunteer’ and I am on my 
way to the West Indies. Is the work there classified as 
Home or Foreign Missions?” The answer assured him 
that it might be regarded in either light, because it was 
a country foreign to the United States, and yet in some 
places our flag waved in protection of life and liberty. 
“Well,” he replied, “upon arrival if I find it is Home 
Missions, I am going on. I intend to be a foreign mis- 
sionary if I have to go all the way to India.’ Many a 
person possibly sings with unconscious mental reservation : 
“T’ll go where you want me to go, dear Lord, o’er moun- 
tain or plain or sea’’—if it be in some conspicuous or 
remunerative service. Foreign Missions is a great service, 
which has developed some of the grandest characters the 
world ever knew, whose names are immortal and whose 
glory will shine with undiminished lustre during the end- 
less ages of eternity. Home Missions is heroic work in 
a different sphere but in the service of the same Master. 
Each sphere of service wins the applause of different 
types of men. Both will receive the unstinted commenda- 
tion of the Master. Who among us will attain unto the 
ideal of Kipling: 


“And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall 
blame; 
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame; 
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, 


Shall draw the thing as he sees it for the God of Things as they 
Are!” 


188 The Romance of Home Missions 


Romance of the Undramatic 


The purpose of this chapter is to give recognition to 
deserving service in the inconspicuous fields of action. 
Previous chapters have undertaken to show the romance 
of the common-place fields. This will attempt to illustrate 
the romance of personalities which have glorified the com- 
monplace. Richard Pearson Hobson rendered such heroic 
service that the daughters of the land sought to reward 
him with their kisses. His daring was patriotic, unselfish, 
noble, but necessarily glorified himself. The “Unknown 
Soldier” glorified service, not himself. In placing on 
record the names and deeds of selected Home Mission- 
aries, it will be doing each in some measure injustice, by 
attracting attention to them and lifting them out of the | 
category of the “Unknown” into the limelight, but there is 
no other way of giving credit to their companions, left 
to the greater glory of the unknown great. These selected 
may be regarded, therefore, as sacrificed upon the altar of 
service to glorify the commonplace spheres of life. No 
apology is tendered the sainted dead but only to the living, 
with whom we have taken such unwarranted liberties. 


George Reedy Buford 


Several years ago a young man in the graduating class 
of Louisville Seminary wrote the Secretary of Home 
Missions and inquired where he could invest his life to 
the best advantage as a “volunteer” for Home Missions. 
The Spirit of the Lord answered for him that question 
and evidently guided him in the choice of a sphere of 
service. He came to Atlanta as associate pastor with Dr. 
Dunbar H. Ogden. He soon became the best known and’ 
the most useful citizen of the metropolis. In homes of 


The Romance of Home Missions 189 


destitution and suffering, in the Juvenile Court and 
everywhere that human need existed he rendered “first 
aid” as a veritable ministering Angel. Dr. Ogden has 
been asked to give account of his remarkable career: 


“T shall never forget that evening when two thousand 
of us men walked with bowed heads and sorrowing 
hearts through the streets of Atlanta. Five years before 
a young stranger had come to live in the great, hurrying 
city, and now as his body is being borne to the railway 
station strong men are weeping. 

“Mr. Buford, when very young united with the Presby- 
terian Church in Franklin, Tenn. For years he taught 
a Sunday-school class, and in his early manhood was 
made a deacon. Happily married and successful in busi- 
ness, it seemed that his was to be a useful life in the im- 
portant field of customary and inconspicuous service. 
But deep down in his heart was the desire to preach and 
to give his entire time to definite Christian work. 


“In September, 19065, he became a student in Louis- 
ville Theological Seminary, graduating there in 1910. 
A month after entering the seminary he began his work 
at the Preston Street Colored Mission, where he labored 
with enthusiasm and success until he moved to Atlanta 
in 1912. During the first three years of his Atlanta min- 
istry he served as assistant to the pastor of the Central 
Church. Then he was called to the pastorate of the 
Moore Memorial Church, where he labored for two years. 


“God sent him to Atlanta for a special ministry to 
the poor and wayward. When the houses of shame in 
that city were closed by order of the chief of police, the 
door of Mr. Buford’s home was opened to these daugh- 
ters of God who had wandered so far away. He stripped 


190: | The Romance of Home Missions 


himself to the very bone to feed and clothe the needy. 
Some of us with effort become more or less unselfish; he 
seemed never to think of self. Thus he became an in- 
stitution in Atlanta. As men say, ‘Let us take this case 
to the Associated Charities,’ so, in all walks of life they 
said, ‘Let us take this difficult and needy one to Mr. 
Buford.’ | 


“Tears come to my eyes this morning and my heart 
condemns me as I think of his unnecessary burdens. So 
much of his strength had to be given to the gathering 
of funds with which, to feed his poor and needy, when 
we, his comrades, should have borne that burden, and 
left his strong arm free to fight with the forces of hell 
from which he sought to liberate these hearts. 


“How could such a soul fittingly go home? One Satur- 
day afternoon as he and his devoted wife were on their 
way to dine with friends he heard a bitter cry. It was 
the voice of a woman. He said to his wife, ‘Someone is 
in trouble, 1 must go to her help.’ Into the house he 
dashed, and as he entered was shot through the heart by 
a drunken mad-man. Instantly he passed into the pres- 
ence of Him whose hand is pierced and whose side is 
wounded. It was only an humble earthly portal, it was 
only a needy life he sought, but lo, that humble portal 
became the gate of the Eternal City, and he stood before 
the King. I think I can hear Jesus saying unto him, ‘My 
son, inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least 
of these, you have done it’ unto me.’ 


It was said by one of the ministers at the funeral ser- + 
vice that when the stone should be put beside his grave 


The Romance of Home Missions 191 : 


these words might well be chiseled upon it, ‘Promoted 
for Bravery on the Field of Battle.” ’ 


Edgar Tufts 


Edgar Tufts was born at Kirkwood, Georgia, Decem- 
ber 4, 1870, and died at Banner Elk, North Carolina, 
January 6, 1923, the son of a Confederate veteran and an 
elder in the Presbyterian Church. 


One of his teachers at Washington and Lee University 
remarked several years ago, that of all the young men 
who had passed under his hand in thirty-five years, none 
had made better use of his gifts and opportunities for the 
glory of God and the good of the world than Edgar 
A uits: 





Rev. Edgar Tufts looking toward Grandfather Mountain, near 
Banner Elk, N. C., which gave him inspiration. 


While he was still a student at the Seminary, Mr. 
Tufts spent his summer “vacations” in work at Banner 
Elk, and on graduating he accepted a call to take charge 
of this field. Here under the shadow of the Grandfather 
-and Beech Mountains for a quarter of a century he had 


192 The Romance of Home Missions 


“spent and been spent” in the service of God and his 
fellowmen. 


In the winter of 1897-98, Mr. Tufts gathered around 
an open fire in his own room a handful of the more ad- 
vanced pupils and taught them for several months free 
of charge. The following fall at a mid-week prayer- 
meeting he proposed to the people of the community the 
erection of a school, and subscriptions were received to 
the value of about two hundred and fifty dollars in 
lumber and work. After months of hard work, during 
which a debt was never made, the dormitory and a two- 
room academy building were ready for use. 


Each year a forward step has been taken in improve- 
ment or enlargement of the enterprise. One of the earli- 
est of these was the installation of a system for piping 
water into the buildings. Then followed the erection of 
additional buildings as the needs developed, the expan- 
sion of the course of study and enlargement of the 
faculty, the ‘erection of the beautiful church from the 
stone slabs near by through the labor of the people of 
the community under his leadership, the purchase of a 
farm for the establishment of the Grandfather Orphan- 
age, the erection of buildings for the homeless little ones, 
the establishment of Grace Hospital with modern equip- 
ment and a competent physician and surgeon in charge, 
the installation of an electric plant for the institution and 
for the community; and to crown it all, the projecting of 
plans for a Junior College “In the Mountains, Of the 
Mountains, and For the Mountains,’ bearing with the 
great ex-President’s consent, the name of Woodrow’ 
Wilson. 


The Romance of Home Missions LS 


Through Mr. Tufts’ enthusiasm, Dr. W. C. Tate, of 
Knoxville, became interested in the work and its possibili- 
ties, and in 1910 consented to become resident physician 
for the school and community. Contrary to the pre- 
vailing opinion, he has, by his skill, energy and good 
judgment, proved that there is a wide field for success- 
ful service in rural communities for men of high train- 
ing in his profession. Instead of going to a city where 
he could command a lucrative practice, he has devoted 
himself to the purpose of providing this extensive moun- 
tain section with medical and surgical treatment of the 
highest quality. 


“By their fruits ye shall know them,” applies as well 
to institutions as to individuals. Broken bodies have 
been healed and restored to usefulness in the hospital. 
Young minds and souls have been trained for God in 
orphanage, schools, and church. And these young peo- 
ple have gone forth, some as teachers, some as trained 
nurses, others into the business world, many into homes 
of their own, all of them carrying in their hearts, and prac- 
ticing in their lives, the ideals of Christian life and ser- 
vice implanted here. 


Dr. W. W. Moore, President of Union Theological 
Seminary, where Mr. Tufts was trained for the min- 
istry, who weighs most carefully his words, speaks in 
unqualified terms of his life work: 


“T have often said before and I say again that I do 
not know of any minister of our time whose work I 
would rather have been honored of God to do, had I 
been able, than the work Mr. Tufts has done. It was 
creative work and it is abiding. It has had a vast influ- 


194. The Romance of Home Missions 


ence already, and it will be fruitful throughout all the 
future. Minister of the Gospel at Banner Elk and in all! 
the surrounding region for twenty-five years, founder 
and president of Lees-McRae Institute, which since its 
small beginning with a handful of children in his own 
room has trained a thousand mountain girls, father of the 
school of boys at Plumtree (1905), of the hospital at 
Banner Elk (1909), of the Grandfather Orphanage 
(1914), and of Woodrow Wilson Junior College (1922) 
—what a brave, wise, far-reaching, glorious work it was 
given him to do. 


“In St. Paul’s Cathedral, erected by the genius of Sir 
Christopher Wren, the visitor sees statues of other Brit- 
ish worthies, but none of the great architect himself. In- 
stead, however, he sees this inscription: 51 monumentum 
requiris, circumpice—If you seek his monument, look 
around.’ So, to all future visitors to Banner Elk who 
see the buildings where these beneficent activities are car- 
ried on it may be said of the man who, under God, cre- — 
ated them—‘If you seek his monument, look around.’ ”’ 


Walter S. Scott 


A little more than fifty years ago there was born in 
Mexico, of Scotch parents, a boy who was destined to 
exert an almost unlimited influence upon the Home Mis- 
sion work of the Southern Presbyterian Church, Walter 
S. Scott, who for thirty years has been devoting his life 
and work to the Mexicans in Texas. 


The Spanish say: “Next to God—the mother.” On 
his maternal side he was descended from a Huguenot, 
who left France at the time of the celebrated Revocation 


The Romance of Home Missions 195 


of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and went to the north of 
Scotland, where he established a marble yard, which is 
still in existence in the city of Aberdeen. Huis mother was 
Mary Pirie, born in Aberdeen, Scotland. Bereft of her 
mother in her early youth, her father married again and 
emigrated to Canada, where he established The Guelph 
Herald, the first newspaper published in that part of 
Canada. His father, Walter Scott, Sr., was born in 
Scotland near the English border and emigrated to Canada 
with his parents. 


After the marriage of his parents, on account of fail- 
ing health his father moved the family to New Orleans, 
and thence to Texas. In the effort to return to New 
Orleans, but hindered by the War between the States, 
the family in ox-carts removed to Mexico with the hope 
of reaching a port of embarkation for New Orleans. A 
series of remarkable providences, however, detained them 
in Mexico; and in a little straw thatched adobe hut, on the 
6th of August, 1865, was born the future Apostle to the 
Mexicans in Texas. 


At our request he gives the following brief account 
of the sojourn in Mexico and his ministry: 


“Rev. James Hickey, a Baptist minister representing 
the British and Foreign Bible Society, a converted Irish 
priest, organized what was perhaps the first Protestant 
church in Mexico, the Baptist Church of Monterey in 
1863. He put his hand on my little baby head while I 
was in my mother’s arms and said: ‘Walter, I can’t bap- 
tize you, but I will give you my blessing.’ My father and 
Mr. Hickey started the first girls’ school in northern 
Mexico, under Protestant auspices, November 21, 1863. 


196 The Romance of Home Missions 


A Mexican teacher was secured. My father bought 
thirty sheep skins with the wool on them which were 
placed on the floor as seats for the girls. My mother was 
the superintendent of that singular school, and my father 
sent to New York for some primers from the American 
Tract Society. 


“T well remember Miss Melinda Rankin and her two 
nieces, the Misses Kimball. One of these was my teacher 
for a year at the Presbyterian Mission. I can truthfully 
say that I was raised in the Presbyterian Mission. I was 
thirteen when my parents moved back to Texas and settled 
in San Antonio. By.the kindly interest of my Sunday 
School teacher, Miss Lizzie S. Matthews, of blessed 
memory, I began to think of giving myself to the Lord’s 
service and preparing to go as a missionary to Mexico. ° I 
began to work in the Methodist Mexican church of San 
Antonio in 1884; then I started a class of my own with 
thirteen Mexican men in the Sunday School of the First 
Presbyterian Church. 


“On my 20th birthday I went to San Marcos, the Oth 
of August of 1885 and there began my association with 
the Mexican Work in Texas which was to become my life | 
work! For seven years thereafter, or until I was ordained 
and came to San Marcos asa Missionary in April of 1892, 
I visited the Mexican Presbyterians at San Marcos three 
and four times a year at my own expense. It was a grand 
opportunity for me to practice and feed my heart’s desire, 
and I managed to keep the little flock together until I 
went there as an Evangelist with Presbyterial authority. 


“T attended the adjourned meeting of the Presbytery of 
Western Texas which met at San Marcos and there placed 


The Romance of Home Missions 197 


myself under the care of the Presbytery as a student for 
the Ministry. No great interest was shown in my behalf, 
however, and three years and a half went by. At length, 
due to the kind interest of Dr. A. H. P. McCurdy, I was 
sent to study under Drs. Dabney and Smoot at the old 
School of Theology in Austin, Texas, where the second 
year I was the only student. Upon application I was 
licensed—and ordained the following day—as an Evange- 
list upon the same examination as an ‘extraordinary case.’ 


“T preached my first sermon after ordination at San 
Marcos on Sunday the Ist of May, 1892. On that day I 
received and baptized the first members, celebrated my 
first Communion and married the first couple—San 
Marcos, our only Mexican church having about fifty mem- 
bers. I had taught a Mexican public school at Uvalde in 
86-87, so that just as soon as I could I went out there, 
in July of that first year—143 miles from San Marcos. 
On my first visit I organized a Sunday School. By Christ- 
mas following we had organized a church—my first born! 
I had a family, had to buy my own horse and buggy within 
the first few months, had to pay my own traveling ex- 
penses, and my salary was only $700 a year. I got in 
debt the first year and did not get out of it in 25 years. 


“The work at and about San Marcos grew to five 
churches, four of them with a chapel built by the members 
themselves, the fifth had a schoolhouse given to them for 
their use. At the same time the Uvalde field grew to five 
churches, four of them with chapels, also built by the 
members largely. There were nine churches that grew 
out of those two centers, 143 miles apart, and only one 
ordained man to care for the two fields. At the same time, 
during those years, I had all the territory embraced by 


198 The Romance of Home Missions 


the Presbytery of Western Texas as my field, and worked 
at ten or twelve other points. I organized churches at 
Bexar, Laredo, Corpus Christi, Beeville, Clareville,. Vic-. 
toria, Gonzales, and San Antonio. During that same 
period, we organized an Elders and Deacons Association 
in the San Marcos group and started yearly Camp, meet- 
ings at Sabinal. We raised funds and bought an immense 
tent for the San Marcos Camp meetings, and one for the 
Uvalde group, with benches, torches and other acces- 
sories.” . 


The work in that double field,—with only one ordained 
minister to care for it,—is perhaps the greatest ever 
accomplished by any denomination among foreign speak- 
ing peoples anywhere in the United States, and the most 
economical. The secret of its stccess was due to the 
remarkable achievement of getting the elders to come up ~ 
to the height of their obligation before God and the mem- 
bership they served, and to do their full duty as Presby- 
terian Apostolic Ruling Elders. 


Mr. Scott has seen the Mexican work grow from one 
church to thirty-two, from one evangelist to fourteen, 
from twenty-six members to one thousand, nine hundred 
and nine. The number of additions on profession of faith 
has averaged more than one hundred per year for the 
entire thirty years, and for the past few years has been 
well over two hundred. In the year 1922 he and his 
assistant added more than one hundred and fifty new 
members on profession of faith. When one realizes that 
this is Foreign Mission Work in the United States, among 
a people steeped in ignorance, superstition and sin, we see 
what it means for one person to bring seventy-five new 
converts in one year’s time. 


The Romance of Home Missions 199 


Never discouraged, always seeing opportunities to open 
new work, with a wonderful gift for interesting others 
and inspiring them to do their best, it is largely due to 
Mr. Scott’s efforts that the Southern Presbyterian Mission 





Typical picture of Rev. R. D. Campbell, 
just as he left his home for a trip. 
(X) marks his home. 


200 The Romance of Home Missions 


work for the Mexicans in Texas is the outstanding work 
being done in that State by any denomination. 


As the results of his ministry, Rev. Walter S. Scott 
organized 16 of the Mexican churches which entered into 
the Texas-Mexican Presbytery, as well as the 9 which now 
comprise the Advance Field—25 churches in all. He has 
received over 1,500 Mexicans into the church on profes- 
sion of faith, baptized more than 800 children and built 
12 chapels in a ministry of 31 years! Who can duplicate 
it? Is there no romance in such apostolic work? 


Much of the marvelous success of this work is due to 
the consecrated work of Rev. R. D. Campbell, evangelist 
among the Mexicans for two decades. An effort to secure. 
information as to his experiences and personal achieve- 
ments, however, was unsuccessful. | 


Dr. J. W. Skinner 


By dint of effort and personal persuasion the author has 
extracted from Dr. Skinner the details of missionary ad- 
venture woven into the following narrative of unmatched 
service : | 


Who is this Texas-Mexican man? Born and reared in 
Kentucky, trained at Centre College and Princeton, he 
held three pastorates totaling twenty-eight years and then 
became a Texas Home Missionary. Pastorates in Indiana, ~ 
Illinois and Colorado are far removed from Home Mission 
work on the Rio Grande; but “there is a divinity that 
shapes our ends—rough hewn’;-—sometimes, 


An effort to retrieve fragments of wreckage from finan- 
cial entrustment in the hands of others induced a visit to 


The Romance of Home Missions 201 


south Texas. After two years of nursing a forlorn hope 
preparations were made for a return North. On the day 
for departure came a wire from the Synod of Texas with 
an invitation to develop Texas-Mexican—*‘Preposterous !”” 
Two. years sojourn gave only a surface acquaintance with 
the Mexican people and their problems, but a revelation 
of their desperate needs. A decision of refusal was easily 
and quickly made. Then whispered his comrade of the 
years: “Our children are grown, educated, settled. Don’t 
you think we might perhaps get this school ready for some 
vigorous young couple to come and carry on the real work. . 
Perhaps God sent you to Texas for this very purpose.”’ 
There has never come a place to let go, because the appeal 
-of need would not let go its appeal, and the Synod and the 
call of God would not let go their joint demand. 


Perhaps in justice to all parties it would be better from 
this point to insert a personal narrative : 


“What did we tackle? Primarily, a Mexican boy, an 
interrogation point—poor in the chattels of the markets, 
yet rich in a race heritage of a lost but cherished civiliza- 
tion. Four hundred years of alien exploitation has left 
_him suspicious yet, failed to extinguish the altar fires in 
his soul, on which he made his offerings to patriotism and 
religion. _We have found in him the makings of a noble 
Christian manhood, and have learned to trust and love 
him. Thus our ‘boy troubles’ are being ‘staked out.’ We 
think we have his number, in part. 


“Then came the discovery that a single problem may 
have more than one X. The other X made us scratch our 
heads more than once. An X has so many angles. This 
one of ours: 700 acres of wild land; the total absence of 


202 The Romance of Home Missions 


buildings or equipment ; a check book in red; no precedents 
by which to plan the work for either the school or its 
maintenance. Clearing the brush-land began January, 
1912, and school opened in the mule barn, October, 1912. 
and continued to be the tenant of the mules for four years. 
A series of revolutions were reigning in Mexico and were 
continuous for seven years. In August, 1916, came our 
first experience with a Gulf tornado. The Texas-Mexican 
buildings, barns and windmills were scattered over the 
fields. Next day the sun was shining. Some Mexican 
boys came in, and in thirty days the gathered fragments 
were rebuilt into fairly comfortable shelters, and school 
work was resumed. In 1915 the American army tented 
on the Rio Grande and Mexican territory was invaded. 
Texas-Mexican took naps over a volcano that was not 
sleeping. The year 1917 brought army enlistments and 
drafts—fuel to the fires of border turmoil and race ha- 
tred—-1919 a second Gulf tornado and again ‘Texas-Mexi- 
can, windmills and barns and houses took to the fields . 
and again Texas-Mexican boys and friends in thirty days. 


“Stooped down with weary hands 


And built ’em up again’.” 

“The sun shone out again. Friends rallied to Texas- 
Mexican. Permanent storm-proof buildings of interlock- 
ing tile began to appear. Revolutions in Mexico ceased. 
Our boys, many of them Mexicans, returned from shell- 
shocked Europe. A more tempestuous ten years could 
not have been selected in which to establish a Home Mis- 
sion school for Mexican boys in south Texas. Work for 
God may be hindered; it cannot be destroyed. Texas- 
Mexican made deep rootage during the stress years of 


The Romance of Home Missions 203 


storm and strife. It had to go down into the darkness 
until its roots gripped with the Rock of Ages. 


“Necessarily there have been tight places, times of dis- 
couragement, some seasons of stress, much hard work, 
some unpleasant experiences, that first shack shelter, mules 
on one side of the low partition and ‘cookin and eatin’ 
and ‘sleepin on tother’; the wild cats on the roof of that 
shack making the mules try to get in bed with the other 
folks; a scrap with cattle thieves who ‘rustled’ and branded 
some of our calves; the boys who were bitten by rattlers 
and ‘home-cured’; wounds and bruises and displaced and 
brokén bones, home-mended; the boys who grew home- 
sick and showed ‘the yellow’; and the boys who were true 
as steel, in time of trouble asking for guns that they mighi 
defend Mrs. Skinner, when, during my absence, bandits 
threatened ; the man who donated a crooked legged horse 
to enjoy laughing at Texas-Mexican; two years of drought 
with no crops when God caused the mesquite brush to 
make no wood but to mature three crops of beans each 
season, and the cactus to yield four leaves instead of two, 
and how our mules and hogs existed on the mesquite beans 
and our cows came through on charred cactus. But these 
things are simply in the day’s work. Their counterpart 
is in the life of every Home Missionary. Nay more— 
experiences of a “‘whatness’ are in every man’s life who 
has tackled a man-sized job, and who knows the shock 
of conflict and the thrill of victory. 


“Texas-Mexican is an illustrated commentary on the 
doctrine of election and foreordination. God purposed and 
planned for Texas-Mexican long ago. The foreordained 
plan included the workers and their training. One a Ken- 
tucky lad, reared in the log house and its great apen fire- 


204 The Romance of Home Missions 


place with crane and spit and covered pan for “pone 
bread; with Jersey cows and hogs as daily chores, the 
tallow candle light of the ‘debating-society’ in the log 
schoolhouse for winter nights, and soaring imagination 
with glowing bursts of mountain eloquence to raise the 
temperature of the room. Then the college course was 
interrupted by necessity to work as carpenter and builder. 
Athletics came not for athletics but to help ‘finish the 
course. Years dragged by as pastor of an A. and M. 
College—church with close friendship among students 
and teachers and familiarity with their work, and then the 
undesired stirring of the nest and the forced migration to 
Texas and the Rio Grande. 

“““God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to per-— 
form,’ making ‘all things work together for good, accord- 
ing to His purpose.’ Texas-Mexican from the beginning 
has been‘as a song of life, throbbing with the romance of 
the aes of God.” 


‘Rev. James A. Bryan 


Not all Home Missionaries are enrolled on official Pres- 
byterian lists. In pious homes and in obscure places, 
multitudes are faithfully training their children for the 
Kingdom of Heaven or seeking the wayward and destitute 
for Christ, with no commission except the personal call of 
God to service. Many a servant of God turns his ministry 
into an intense Home Mission agency without recognition 
and without remuneration. Employed by his charge for 
ministerial and pastoral work, he renders full measure 
of faithful service for the compensation; and after going 
“the first mile’ in strict compliance with the call of duty, 
he goes “the second mile” of unrequited voluntary service, 


s 


The Romance of Home Missions 205 


from love to God and humanity, in weary search of the 
sheep that is lost and beyond the fold of any known 
church. Rev. James A. Bryan, pastor of the whole city 
of Birmingham, Ala., is an eminent example of this type 
of God-chosen men. 

Dr. Bryan was born near Kingstree, S. C., March 20, 
1863, of pious parents who faithfully trained him in the 
Scriptures at home, as well as compelled attendance upon 
Sabbath-school and church. He had the benefit of the 
godly ministry of such men as Revs. James McDowell, 
Cuttino Smith, T. H. Law, Jno. S. Watkins, A. B. Curry, 
and W. E. Mcllwain. From public school he was trans- 
ferred to the Lovejoy Academy in Raleigh, N. C., and at 
length graduated from the University of North Carolina 
in 1885. 

While teaching at Gastonia, N. C., Dr. Wm. Henry 
Green, of Princeton, offered him a “scholarship,” provided 
he could attain a certain standard grade in the class. The 
effort to maintain his stand accounts for the fact that 
he is one of the best Hebrew scholars in our ministry. 
From the Seminary he went to Birmingham, Ala., as 
pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church, where he has 
labored “in season and out of season” for exactly thirty- 
five years. 

It is questionable whether any man in the ministry of 
any denomination in the United States can duplicate his 
record as shown by the following statistics : 


ee aMMMNPMMISE ALOU Ie 5 sige ei. Vics Ge we al + eyere.c.s woe whe 3,588 
SPE IO( gk). cit. Pelee tbe sok 0 cle clove ores wa Gale g's ele 16,120 
Breyer: mecctines conducted... . cbc lt... ee eee 1,880 
BOER ee a «od wk we Kae te Naot ae 2 7,072 
PEER eae tes FOTINE feo ies eas coc om kei w dees 8 2,588 
Received on profession into his church............. 1,700 
Joined other churches under his preaching.......... 400 


Received into other churches in evangelistic meetings 2,480 


206 The Romance of Home Missions 


For twenty- -five. years he averaged in addition to his 
regular services one week in each month holding special 
evangelistic services. He averages ordinarily four fun- 
erals a week and sometimes conducts as many as 52 in a 
month. He has averaged fifteen religious services a week 
for the entire thirty-five years of his ministry. He holds 

services daily and sometimes several times a day in Fac- 
tories, Fire and Police Stations, Machine Shops, Iron 
Works, Public Schools, Loucompton Seminary and Med- 
ical College—following a regular schedule at each place 
upon a specified day in the week. He adopts the voluntary 
system of salary, declining to require a stipulated amount 
but accepts whatever the voluntary offerings aggregate. 


It was natural that he should break under such a strain, 
and for several months last year his life hung trembling 
in the balance, while the hospital was beseiged by inquirers 
and anxious friends. Upon announcement that the crisis 
had passed the Birmingham News carried the following 7 
notice : 


“Probably more than a hundred thousand citizens of 
Birmingham read with joy the announcement in Tuesday’s 
News that Brother Bryan has passed through the valley 
of the shadow of death. Constantly through all that ter- 
rific struggle Brother Bryan had with Death, Birmingham 
friends wrestled with God in prayer for him. All that 
could be done was done by medical and surgical science 
to keep the spirit in its earthly vehicle. Soon, God willing, 
he will be the same old earnest, loving, compassionate 
Bryan passing through the byways and hedges of Greater 
Birmingham looking for the helpless and the afflicted, the 
scorned, the broken, blessing them, giving the cup of 


The Romance of Home Missions 207 


water, the loaf of bread, and whatever money he may have 
in his purse’—and sometimes the coat off of his back. 


In 1920 the Birmingham News offered a $500 “Loving 
Cup” for the most distinguished citizen who had rendered 
the largest service to the city and humanity. The award 
of the seven judges was unanimous in favor of Dr. Bryan; 
and when it was publicly presented in one of the largest 
auditoriums in the city great crowds thronged the doors 
utterly unable to obtain entrance. In the following lan- 
guage the decision was rendered which struck a responsive 
chord in the heart of the entire city: 


“Tn reaching our final decision we were governed by the 
principles outlined in your original announcement of the 
gift of the loving cup: 


“Service is the keynote of the day, and the noblest 
form of service lies in unselfish devotion to the welfare of 
one’s city and fellows.’ 


“Unanimously the judges decided upon Rev. James A. 
Bryan as the citizen who most has enriched and ennobled 
the lives of his fellow citizens and thus rendered the great- 
est service to Birmingham during the year 1920.” 


The great cup was then carried into the lobby where it 
was literally filled to the overflow “for Mrs. Bryan,” his 
faithful companion and helper in all his years of service. 


If each of the 214,385 ministers reported in the Year 
Book of the Federal Council were a “Bryan,” it would no 
longer be a question of debate as to the time when the 
millennium will take place. The United States, at least. 
would be in its immediate and full enjoyment. 


208 The Romance of Home Missions 


Dr. J. H. Morrison 


Still another type must be given a place in the romance 
of missionary service—the man who has served the Church 
in almost every conceivable capacity and left behind a 
marvelous record, judged by results—and Dr. J. H. Mor- 
rison is selected to represent this class. 


Born February 2nd, 1849. 


Graduated from Davidson College, N. C., and Minos) 
Theological Seminary, Va. 


Ordained by West Lexington Presbytery to the Min- 
istry in 1878. 


Pastor and supply of five chueehes from 1878 to 1888, ° 
during his first ten years in the pastorate and of several 
others later, interspersed with his evangelistic engage- 
ments. Evangelist at different periods for the Presby- 
teries of Louisville, Pine Bluff, Ouachita, Durant, Ft. 
Worth, and for the Synods of Kentucky and Tennessee—_ 
as well as occasional independent evangelistic work. 


Evangelistic meetings conducted ................ 114 
Funds raised’ as ‘Financial’Agent?!.2 /cs9a. 2.0 as $96,000 
Churches: Orgamized ~ if oiaic:, « sansa tener en 14 
Church Buildings erected oie. oc 2.8 eee ee ee 11 
Total confessions under, hj¢* ministry Ji nGee wae 3,700 
Number of mén influenced to enter the ministry... 27 
Years Ots Service icon ieee eee ee i eee 45 


This story is told purposely in numericals for the sake 
of variety. These figures are eloquent with service, self- 
denials, toil, faith—and results. Now exactly seventy-five 
years of age and almost totally blind, yet “his bow abides 
in strength’; and he is serving in a distinctive Home, 
Mission field, where he is engaged in work as arduous 


The Romance of Home Missions 209 


and active as the average man in the full vigor of man- 
hood. He is waiting, watching, working. 


“Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh 
shall find so doing.” 


Ebenezer Hotchkin 


The following thrilling narrative of missionary adven- 
ture furnished by Prof. Hotchkin serves a twofold pur- 
pose, giving a historic account of early beginnings and 
romantic service among the Indians, and at the same time 
laying the foundation for his own noble work: 

“Among the consecrated workers on the field in 1856 
were our Presbyterian Missionaries, Reverends Cyrus 
Kingsbury, Cyrus Byington, C. C. Copeland, Alfred 


ae 


ae 





Rev. Ebenezer Hotchkin, third generation of. mission- 
aries; since Mr. Gibbons’ death and Mr. Ralston’s re- 
tirement our senior missionary to the Indians. 


Wright and Ebenezer Hotchkin. Father Hotchkin was 
born in Lenox, Mass., in 1802. In 1826 he went as a 
missionary to the Choctaws at Goshen, Miss., and in 1832 . 


210 The Romance of Home Missions 


moved with them to the Indian Territory. His wife. 
Philena Thatcher, from Pennsylvania, came to the Mission 
in 1822 under the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions. With twenty others she went from 
Pittsburgh to Natchez on a flat boat, crossing the Al- 
legheny Mountains in wagons, amid many hardships. 
They seemed, however, to rejoice rather than murmur, 
counting it a blessing to suffer for Jesus. 


“The removal of the Indians was a terrible trial. Homes 
that it had taken years to build must be left. They could 
get little or nothing for them. Knowing that the Govern- 
ment was bargaining for the country, swindlers of all 
kinds were on the ground. Rev. Alfred Wright and his | 
wife, of Charleston, S. C., were among the sufferers. 
They wondered if it would be wrong to girdle the precious 
fruit trees they had worked hard to cultivate, and now 
had to give up to the rabble. 


“No words can picture the sufferings of the Indians on 
that fatal journey—many of them were poorly clad, and 
there was little to eat but hominy, made by the women. 
It was no wonder that so many of them died by the way, 
and those who were Christians rejoiced that they could 
find Home so soon. “Mother Hotchkin,” so called by - 
everybody, rode a little Indian pony and carried her only 
child, afterward Mrs. John Kingsbury, on her lap from 
Natchez, Miss., to Doaksville, Indian Territory, then 
known as Ft. Towson. When they arrived there was 
nothing but the wilderness—flour hauled from Little Rock 
cost $50 a barrel; and all the meal must be ground on a 
hand mill; pumpkin was the staff of life. 


“Two by two the younger missionaries went from camp 
to camp, living from two to six weeks in Indian homes, 


The Romance of Home Missions 211 


learning their language and preaching the Gospel of 
Christ. In the family nothing but Choctaw was spoken, 
consequently the children learned to talk Choctaw before 
they learned English, which made Rev. Chas. E. Hotchkin 
such a valuable help in later years. 


“My father, Henry Hotchkin, was born on Clear Creek, 
Choctaw Nation, near Ft. Towson. My uncle, Charles 
E. Hotchkin, was born at the Mission School, six miles 
south of Doaksville. Their missionary mother had devoted 
all her children to the Indian work, but while my father 
was not a minister, he was a missionary in every other 
sense of the word. Using Indians on the farm he came 
into. close contact with them. The Choctaw Testament 
was used at family prayers and God blessed his influence 
with the Indians. 


“My mother, Mary Semple Hotchkin, became a mission- 
ary to the Indians in 1857. She was a graduate of the 
Steubenville, O., Seminary, and had been drilled in the 
faith by the Rev. C. C. Beaty, D. D. Dr. Palmer wrote 
her of the great need of this country, and urged her to 
give herself to the work, and he met her at Lexington, 
Ky., where the General Assembly convened that year. 
She was placed in the care of Reverends John Kingsbury 
and Alex. Read, and in company with another young lady 
the trip was made in a wagon from Gaines Landing on 
the Mississippi to Doaksville. Father and mother were 
married in 1860. | 


“War soon cut the missionaries off from the Board, but 
they would not leave, and the work was carried on. No 
pen can describe the sufferings of, that period. Mission- 
aries from the North were ordered to leave the country. 


212 The Romance of Home Missions 


This was done not by the Indians, but by guerilla bands 
passing through. My mother accepted a position under 
the Indian Government and made the work truly mission- 
ary. She taught for forty years, her first being an Indian 
school where none of the pupils could speak English. — 


“They were brave men and women, these Indian mis- 
sionaries who loved their Lord and Master, and nothing 
was.too hard for them to undertake for Him.” 


The author of this narrative is himself the third genera- 
tion of missionaries among the Choctaws. In early life 
he began as teacher in the small “Calvin Institute’ for 
Indians. Largely through his sacrifices, enthusiasm and 
perseverance this Mission School grew into “Durant Col-_ 
lege,” which the very first day of the opening created both 
embarrassment and inspiration by reason of its utter in- 
adequacy to meet the demands of the institution. 


Being a commissioner to the General Assembly. at 
Greensboro, N. C., 1908, his record-breaking speech for 
brevity and enthusiasm awakened a spontaneous response 
which transformed “Durant College” into the “Oklahoma 
Presbyterian”—having now an equipment of $250,000, the 
greatest missionary institution in Oklahoma and perhaps 
of our denomination in the entire West. Wauth character- 
istic self-abnegation, he promptly retired from the presi- 
dency in order to bring to the front Prof. W. B. Morrison. 
a trained educator, though he himself was forced by public 
sentiment to retain his connection with the institution in. 
the capacity of Bible teacher—a position which he con- 
tinues to fill with unrivalled success. It is in the interest 
of strict truth to say Dr. Morrison and himself have in 
the past and are still rendering unsurpassed service to the 
cause of education and missions, 


The Romance of Home Missions ANS. 


Known everywhere in the state as “Professor” Hotch- 
kin, the Spirit of God had a still “higher calling” for him; 
and he was ordained to the ministry as an “extraordinary 
case,” in two senses of the term, and is now “evangelist” 
to the Indians—“in labors more abundant” and having 
“the care of all the churches.” He has literally worn out 
several Ford cars. He has raised by personal appeal 
nearly $100,000 for the College and Goodland School, has 
received hundreds into the church, served in twofold ca- 
pacity as teacher and preacher and reared a large family 
on a salary, which was never adequate for their comfort- 
able support. His graduates are scattered all over the 
State, serving as teachers and in other professions, while 
dozens of converts will rise up at the day of final accounts 
as his spiritual children to “call him blessed.” His life 
and work suffer in having so mild a term applied as 
“romance.” 


Annie Shadden 


Not alone in their story of sacrificial service will men 
stand revealed in the awards of the Master. There are 
heroines of faith as well, not so pre-eminent, or prominent 
perhaps, but greater in the aggregate, as Sabbath-school 
teachers, voluntary workers among the lowly or in des- 
titute Negro communities. 


The Roman Catholic Church canonizes its saints after 
allowing a sufficient lapse of time for history to render 
its verdict.. Worthy deeds and successful achievement are 
their own witness, more reliable than the uncertain tradi- 
tions and contradictory statements of the dim twilight of 
past ages. 


214 The Romaxce of Home Missions 


Miss Shadden was our first officially commissioned 
woman home missionary, having been sent to Oklahoma 
as an experiment in pioneer service. In the scarcity of 
ordained men, she was commissioned to visit new towns 
and destitute communities, to investigate conditions, search 





Miss Annie Shadden 


for scattered Presbyterians, organize Sabbath-schools and 
women’s societies and thereby gather the nucleus of a 
prospective Church. How well she did her work may be 
judged by the following accounts of her efforts and by 


The Romance of Home Missions ZAK 


the churches which stand today as monuments to her 
fidelity and efficiency : 


“About a year ago we had applications from a few 
Presbyterians in Shawnee, Okla., for the organization of 
a church in that town of 20,000 people. With a little 
assistance from friends, we secured the finest lot in the 
city for achurch. A minister was put in charge, but after 
six months gave it up on account of difficulties and dis- 
couragements. Just at this time we wanted to try what 
a woman missionary could do in the West, and in October 
sent Miss Annie Shadden, of Atlanta, to Shawnee. She 
found only 9 ladies—not a man among them—thoroughly 
discouraged, but she started a Sabbath-school immediately, 
and then re-organized the Woman’s Society. From house 
to house she went with her Bible, quietly praying with 
busy mothers, and pointing them to the Savior.’”—Home 
Mission Herald. 

As a result, in two months she had the nucleus of a 
small church, waiting for Rev. J. M. Clark, who took 
charge December Ist. Now they have a church building 
valued at $20,000, a membership of 130, entirely self- 
supporting, a Sabbath-school enrollment of 182, and con- 
tributions aggregating last year $3,078—besides dismissing 
more than 100 members to other Presbyterian churches. 

Before following her to other fields, it is appropriate to 
place on record a few quotations from her letters, which 
will show difficulties that she encountered, methods used in 
her work, and the spirit that actuated and sustained her 
in her heroic efforts. After careful reading one will not 
be so surprised at her marvelous success: 


“The outlook was not very bright, I confess, but I found 
one dear old lady who said she had no money but would 


216 The Romance of Home Missions 


pray for me. I began to visit from house to house in 
the effort to get others interested in our work. I got 
several to join a Ladies’ Aid Society, and when at our 
second meeting we had twelve, I felt greatly encouraged. 
As there was no deacon, I looked after the business side 
of our organization. We rented an organ and bought a 
stove, placed strips of carpet in the aisles, and carpeted 
the rostrum; so it is real cozy, and we had sweet fellow- 
ship there and our Lord met with and blessed us in many 
delightful services. Tender memories will always cling 
around our first church home, ‘our own vine and fig tree.’ 
Having no church, we had lost scores of Southern Presby- 
terians who had joined others rather than remain out of 
church. 


“So, while my duties were varied, that made them all 
the more interesting. The first money I received toward 
our building fund was given me by a dear old lady. She 
is eighty-three years old, and the widow of a.Cumberland 
preacher ; with failing eyesight, there was little she could. 
do, so she knitted a scarf which she sold for a dollar, 
and handed it to me, saying: ‘It is only a little, but I pray 
it may be one brick in the Temple of my Lord’. Later on 
there was more time for personal work, and sometimes 
an opportunity would occur for me to speak to some about 
the salvation of their souls. I have received letters from 
mothers in the East, asking me to try to get loved sons, 
who had drifted West, interested in church, before the 
deadly habit of this land of strangers fastened upon them, 
that of neglecting worship in God’s house, and working 
all day on the Sabbath the same as during the week. 


“In my visiting I see much to make me sad, and much 
also, that cheers. Not long ago I went into a hovel of 


The Romance of Home Missions 217 


want, where a mother and five little boys live, all in one 
room, the husband having deserted his family recently. 
The room, hardly worthy of the name of ‘home,’ was of 
tent or awning cloth, the roof and sides were not weather- 
boarded at all, and no ceiling. 


“My duties take me to different sections of this great 
new State. Prosperity and progress prevail in all other 
lines, and I just wish that Christianity were making as 
great strides. Sometimes in house to house visiting I 
find a good Christian who bestows her blessing upon me 
and bids me ‘keep strong in the Lord.’ Recently I called 
upon an old Scotch lady, so lonely and sad, and she said: 
‘No one cares for me.’ In, the next block lives another 
old lady more alone, with not even a son to comfort her, 
and she was in need of financial aid. 


“Often I come home very tired—perhaps there have 
been discouragements—but maybe there will be a letter 
from a friend in a distant part of the State, who says the 
clouds are lifting in her home—and that work I have . 
just left is doing well—then it is I feel that the weary 
days and the long hot walks do not matter, and I thank 
our Father that he permits me to be an humble laborer in 
His vineyard. 


“Each day brings its opportunity for doing good; some- 
times it is to go to the homes of the illiterate and teach 
the Bible to the mothers and tell simple stories to the 
children of the Savior and His love for them. One 1s 
made happy by seeing their sad faces brighten, their eyes 
open wide as they ask to hear more of the old, old story, 
so new to them. It is glorious to be permitted to help 
in this work. Sometimes this summer we have well-nigh 


218 The Romance of Home Missions 


fainted, the thermometer standing at 116 degrees in the 
shade; but we remembered Haggai 2:4, ‘Be strong, all ye 
people of the land, saith the Lord, and work.’ We must 
work while it is day to save these children, for the evil 
one has every snare spread for their destruction. 


“In one mining town near here the ladies, at their 
Prayer Circle, are earnestly praying for some city church 
or group of churches ‘back East’ to furnish the money to 
support a Bible woman, to live among the poorer, more 
ignorant people and teach them the way of life. Foreign- 
ers of almost every nationality are living here, and now 
that a strike has been on for months, these miners are 
becoming desperate, with no work and little money for 
food. They have the European idea of observing the 
Sabbath; many of them, too, persist in making their own 
beer, teaching the children to drink it and are otherwise 
undesirable neighbors. But the fact remains that they 
are here, and we need not go abroad to find heathen; they 
are right at our very doors; Foreign Missions in Home 
Mission fields!” 


Her pioneer work at Oklahoma City, Sulphur, Lawton 
and other places resulted in splendid churches—some of | 
them now self-supporting. She organized the Choctaw 
women of Indian Presbytery into societies which are still 
giving good account of themselves, and her work at 
Oklahoma Presbyterian College was phenomenal, result- 
ing in bringing numbers of these girls into the Kingdom. 
Some of these are now mothers training their children, 
and others are leaders in their communities and churches. 

Her health having failed, we transferred her to the 
bracing mountain sections. This climate at length proved 
too rigorous for her, and she resigned her official respon- 


The Romance of Home Missions re 


sibilites ; but she is still at work as her strength permits— 
a missionary without a designated field and without salary, 
serving wherever the Spirit of God directs. 


These are specimens of an innumerable throng, “of 
whom the world was not worthy,” who have lived in com- 
parative obscurity and have not received the plaudits of 
men, but who will one day be crowned amid the acclama- 
tions of saints and angels. What were “decree of triumph” 
by the Roman Senate; what were the plaudits of men; or 
the halos of earth in comparison with the commendation 
of the Master, “Well done, good and faithful servant, 
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord”—commensurate with 
the unending years of eternity. 


WANTED—MEN 





The world has work for men, 
Men of purpose, strength and zeal; 
Men with courage, staunch and real; 
Men with passion for the right! 
Men of honor stainless, bright. 


The nation calls for men, 
Men to trample down the wrong; 
Men to guide a stumbling throng; 
Men to govern, counsel, lead; 
Sure in wisdom, brave in deed. 


The Church seeks earnest men, 
Men of vision, Spirit led; 
Men whose selfishness is dead; 
Men to send the Master’s Word 
Till the farthest soul has heard. 


The Christ is calling men, 
Men to consecrate their all, 
Heeding but the Saviour’s call; 
Men with faith in strength above, 
Filled with patient, fearless love. 


God shares His work with men. 
Work dispelling darkness drear; 
Work to bring His Kingdom near. 

Work for men firm, valiant, true; 

Noble work for men to do. 


220 


Chapter Eight 


The ROMANCE 
of aWORLD-KINGDOM TASK 


“God so loved the world.” “Go ye into all the world.” 
“The field is the world.” One's conception of the 
“world,” expressed in terms of a definition, reveals his 
conception of the task of the Church, and indirectly his 
mental and spiritual attitude as to his consequent respon- 
sibility. 

Comparative Insignificance 


The telescope of the astronomer dwarfs our world into 
a mere atom in the universe, compared with other heavenly 
bodies. The sun would make one million globes the size 
of the earth. The latter is not even a first class planet, 
Jupiter being twelve hundred times as large. Betelgeuse 
and Antares each would make 27,000,000 bodies the size 
of our sun; and the huge mass of either would occupy 
all the space within the earth’s orbit around the sun; in- 
cluding the sun itself. Our entire solar system is so small 
in comparison, it could not even be seen from Betelgeuse 
or Antares; and either of the two would make about 
thirty trillions of our world! 


Comparative Importance 


Other considerations exalt our world in far greater 
proportion than it is dwarfed by its insignificant size. It 
will be forever famous throughout the universe as the 


| 


222 The Romance of Home Missions 


birthplace, temporary residence and crucifixion of the 
Lord of Glory. It may possibly be-equally famous as the 
only “lost world” among the myriads in existence, and 
therefore the one for which the Son of God left all others | 
in order to seek and to save that “which was lost”—the 
world which “God so loved . . . that he gave his only 
begotten Son” for its salvation. Just as tourists make 
pilgrimages, to Thermopylae, Waterloo or Gettysburg by 
reason of their historic associations, so it may be our 
world is possibly the “spectacle” of the whole universe on. 
account of its story of redemption. Bethlehem and Cal- 
vary are not in themselves localities of any natural attrac- 
tion, and yet they are the most sacred places of earth 
because of their association with the birth and death o1 
our Lord. The same consideration may make our in- 
significant world the scene of innumerable pilgrimages 
from the remotest parts of the Universe. The Apostle 
Peter furnishes a suggestive hint that angelic spirits gaze 
wistfully into the mysteries of redemption: “Which things 
the angels desire to look into’”’—literally “bend aside” in 
majestic awe. The story of its lost condition, of God's 
amazing love and its redemption by the blood of the Son 
of God, may constitute it the world of -Romance in the 

boundless universe of God! | 


World-Kingdom Task 


The mission of the Church is embodied in the Great 
Commission—crystallized into the theme, The Evangeliza- 
tion of the World. It might be characterized as the 
Romance of a World-Kingdom Task, that challenges 
Christianity to create a world-consciousness of universal 
kinship reaching to the last man, involving an obligation 


The Romance of Home Missions 223 


of service based on human brotherhood, with a still higher 
motive grounded in redemption by the blood of Christ. 
Its purpose is to carry the message of God’s love to “every 
creature’ composing a lost world. 


Hemispheres of Service 


It requires two hemispheres to make a world, known as 
the Eastern and Western. In the religious domain they 
are the hemispheres of Home and Foreign Missions. To 
eliminate either hemisphere of Christian service is to dis- 
credit the larger conception of Christ’s ideal and to narrow 
correspondingly the scope of the Church’s paramount 
task. The two are correlated and interdependent. They 
can no longer be considered apart, much less undertaken 
irrespective of each other. It was this interdependence of 
Home and Foreign Missions that moved Austin Phelps 
to exclaim in that intense style so peculiarly his own: “If 
I were a missionary in Canton, China, my first prayer 
every morning would be for the success of American 
Home Missions, for the sake of Canton, China.”’ 


Raymond Robins, who has traveled extensively and 
spent much time studying conditions in Russia among the 
Bolshevists, in an address in Atlanta, is reported to have 
stated that the disgraceful breakdown in the Russian army 
was due to the fact that 3 per cent were returned im- 
migrants from America, who poisoned the minds of the 
others as to conditions in America and its ideals in the 
war, and that America therefore was indirectly respon- 
sible for the disastrous collapse. The mingling of world 
populations, with the consequent interchange of thought. 
makes it impossible now to evangelize any one nation apart 


224 The Romance of Home Missions 


from the whole, which necessitates a world program em- 
bracing home and foreign countries alike. 


The Wholeness and Oneness of the Task 


Multitudes enthusiastic for world evangelization have 
lost faith in the ability of the Church to Christianize the 
civilized and nominally Christian nations, and as an alter- 
native are turning to the heathen world as the sole means 
of retrieving a lost cause. The materialistic spirit per- 
vading the Church, the latent unbelief deadening its 
spiritual life, the worldliness neutralizing its vital godliness 
and the lukewarmness characterizing its activities have 
made some, apologists for a low standard, as if this were 
all that could be expected, and have caused others to lose 
faith in the mission of Christianity as a transforming in- 
fluence in the world. | | 


If the full significance of the World Kingdom Task 
thoroughly filtrates into the consciousness of the Church, 
it will catch fire. This should constitute a stimulus ade- 
quate to move the spiritual forces of the world to ‘an 
effort commensurate with the gigantic task. To ac- 
complish the purpose, however, it is supremely essential 
that men revise and reconstruct their conception of the 
significance of the term. Unfortunately the very terms, 
“Home” and “Foreign’’ Missions, have served each to 
limit their conception to a part rather than the whole. 
The time is now propitious for discarding these narrow 
conceptions and for so enlarging the thought of men as 
to take into calculation a real world program and into 
their sympathies every phase of missionary effort in- 
cluded in and essential to the fulfilment of the Great 


The Romance of Home Missions Pats 


Commission. It has never been said, Go ye into all the 
civilized or into all the heathen but into all the world. 
Let no one flatter himself that his is a world program, if 
it lacks either of the two essential elements—the evangel- 
ization of the world and the Christianization of America. 


It is in no sense an undervaluation of either the vital 
importance or the magnitude of the Task of evangelizing 
the heathen nations, that new emphasis is herein placed 
on the hemisphere of Home Missions, the base of supply 
for the aggressive campaign overseas. 


Is America a Christian Nation? 


Immense damage to the Kingdom of Christ is caused 
by the effort to depreciate and discredit the task of sav- 
ing America. The suggestion and active propaganda, 
that America is already evangelized and is now a Chris- 
tian country, are so subtle, and so paralyzing to the 
energies of the Church, and withal so subversive of the 
facts, that it would seem almost as if the great deceiver 
and author of calumnies had “shrewdly stolen a march” 
on some of God’s most devoted saints, by insinuating 
into their minds divisive thoughts for current circulation, 
calculated to quiet the apprehension of the spiritual forces 
as to the movements of the enemy, until the latter had 
surreptitiously gotten possession of the citadel of faith. 
This abundantly justifies the inquiry and discussion of 
the question, Is America a Christian Nation? 


Yes and No 


This question must be undoubtedly answered affirma- 
tively as to its status as a Christian country but negatively 


Do 


26 The Romance of Home Missions 


as to being a Christian nation. This distinction is so 
fundamentally important as to justify demonstration. 


1. In Classification, America is entitled to be denomi- 
nated a Christian country. A map of the world recently 
issued, indicates, by varying colors, the extent of the 
different religions and where they are to be found. Some 
other countries have two and three colors suggesting a di- 
vision in their religious beliefs, but the United States is 
all under one color, which would seem to convey the 
idea that this nation is all Christian without dissent. 
This map of the world is technically correct in classifying 
America as “Christian,” rather than Mohammedan, Budd- 
hist, or Confuscianist. In answer to the complaint of 
Jew or agnostic, attacking certain institutions or laws 
of the United States, the Judge of the Supreme Court 
was perfectly right in pronouncing America a “Christian 
country.” } | 

2. In its published Ideals, America is undoubtedly 
Christian. No nation in history, unless it were God’s _ 
chosen people, was ever more distinctly religious and 
missionary in the character of its early settlers. It was 
founded in the interest of religious liberty and freedom 
of conscience. The official Charters and Commissions © 
granted by foreign courts to these emigrants, contain al- 
most without exception, an explicit recognition of the 
divine claim. “In the name of God, Amen,” are the 
opening words of the Mayflower compact; and the full 
spirit and meaning of that historic document are summed 
up in phrase as follows: “For the glory of God and the 
advancement of the Christian faith.” It must be ad- 
mitted, however, that some interpret “liberty” as “license.” 
“This is a free country,” is the right—in their estima- 


The Romance of Home Missions 227 


tion—to do as they please. This is just the opposite of 
Christianity. . 


3. It is Christian in its Fundamental Principles. it is 
true there is no recognition of God in its Constitution, 
yet its government is based on the Moral Law. No state 
legislature or Congress would dare enact anything os- 
tensibly contrary to the Ten Commandments or the Ser- 
mon on the Mount. It protects by law the Church and 
religious worship. It recognizes the Christian Sabbath— 
against the protest of Jew, Seventh Day Adventist and 
Infidel. It has written a Prohibition Amendment to the 
Constitution, which has the official backing of the Gov- 
ernment for its enforcement. 


4. It is Christian in its Activities. Its great charitable 
institutions for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb, and its benevo- 
lent associations are all Christian in spirit. The greatest 
philanthropic heart ever known in one people, manifested 
itself in $112,000,000 of voluntary gifts since 1918 to re- 
lieve the needy in other lands. Its educational institu- 
tions, whether conducted by state or church, for meet- 
ing the need of the indigent, have a Christian purpose. 
Its great missionary operations, though distinctively and 
exclusively conducted by the Church, in giving the Gospel 
to the nations of the earth, entitle America to the name of 
Christian country. 


After reciting all these weighty considerations, there 
are certain momentous facts which would seem to turn’ 
the scale in favor of the negative—as a Christian Nation. 


228 The Romance of Home Missions | 


1. Statistics 


From the viewpoint of statistics, America is most em- 
phatically not a Christian Nation. In round numbers the 
following is a fair statement of religious conditions: 


Population (official U. S. Government figures) .111,371, 056 


Protéstants” S252 pve ot ove eet ie aie Sane eee 26, 000, 000 
Roman) Catholicsaien aie: eet, ete eens 18, 000,000 
All other Religious Organizations............ 7a 000, 000 


This latter includes Jews, Mormons, Christian Scien- 
tists and everything which claims a religious purpose. 
This would leave at least 65,000,000 as identified with 
no form of religious organization. It is true these 65,- 
000,000 include children under ten years of age and many 
who are notoriously friendly and patrons of the Church, 
but would not their combined number be balanced by as 
many unconverted people in the ranks of Protestants, 
Catholics, Jews, etc.? 


Other religions have one decided Nayantaea over Chris- 
tianity. Even their nominal membership counts as 100%. 
Mohammedans, Buddhists, Pagans, of every character 
and nominal Christians, all count for Satan as 100% 
Christianity cannot count its nominal membership as. 
100%, but must largely discount it. 


The Year Book of the Federal Council for 1923 gives 
the membership of the churches in the United States as 
47,407,251. This, however, includes as above stated mil- 
lions in non-Christian organizations. Is it right to use 
these camouflage figures as evidence of the progress of 
Christianity? The Year Book also includes 18,000,000 
as Roman Catholics in the grand total, and then admits 
that this number should be divided by 2.8 to obtain the 


The Romance of Home Missions 229 


number of communicants—which would subtract addi- 
tional millions from the aggregate. The Federal Coun- 
cil figures, including non-Christian organizations, indi- 
cate an increase in church membership for 1922 of 1,- 
165,121; but after making certain deductions they reduce 
the gain to 976,601. The official government figures just 
received state that population is growing at the rate ot 
1,721,500 annually. Upon what theory or facts can it be 
contended then that Christianity is gaining on population? 


2. Human Relationships 


America is certainly not Christian in its human rela- 
tionships, judging by its racial and industrial conflicts. 
To be Christian in principle is one thing; but to be Chris- 
tian in practice is quite different. Bitter race prejudice, 
shared alike by Negro and Caucasian, by Asiatic and 
American, is becoming constantly more acute and intensi- 
fied by disappointment in the results—and hopes—of the 
World War. In the readjustment of national and racial 
problems resulting from it, diplomacy is more conspicu- 
ous in its display than Christianity. Is it not a mockery 
to send missionaries to Africa and burn Negroes in 
America? It is true that the participants have no con- 
nection nor sympathy with the deeds of the other; but 
can we avoid complicity in guilt by repudiation of re- 
sponsibility in the language of Cain: “Am I my brother’s 
keeper?” The intelligent heathen fail to see the distinc- 
tion, as may be judged by the following incident: 


“Rabindranath Tagore, in reply to an American’s ques- 
tion as to what he thought of America’s missionary en- 
terprise in India, pointed to a newspaper clipping which 


A 
, 


230 The Romance of Home Missions 


reported the burning alive of two Negroes in America 
and said, ‘So long as ihis goes on in your own land, do 
you think you have any Christianity to export 2 eynere 
ings, whether for heinous crimes, or in most instances for 
miscellaneous charges, are flagrant violations of the law 
both of God and man. 


In the industrial world the conflicts between capital 
and labor, between organized unions and the open shop, 
and between competitors in business, are raging with 
unabated bitterness. Socialism with its spurious claims 
of brotherhood declaims against class distinctions and 
property possessions—being the ill-digested philosophy 
which Karl Marx left as his legacy to the world, having 
within itself destructive elements, which if left to their 
legitimate consequence will ultimately and utterly destroy 
humanity itself. Instead of promoting brotherhood, it 
is creating irreconcilable class antipathies and bringing 
about great “strikes” in the world of industry, which are 
not settled upon a Christian basis of the Golden Rule; 
but instead, the argument on one side is a body of United 
States soldiers and the argument on the other side is 
dynamite—all of which are emphatic contradictions of our 
claims as a Christian nation. | 


3. “America First”—in Crime 


Lawlessness in America disputes its pretentions in the 
field of applied Christanity. “America First’—in Al- 
truism, the phrase coined by Woodrow Wilson, is in im- 
minent danger of changing to one as discreditable as the 
first was commendable, “America First’—in Crinie! 
“Crimes Waves” are the conspicuous headlines which 


The Romance of Home Missions 231 


stare us in the face as we open our great Daily News- 
papers, whether published in the metropolitan city or in 
the backwoods town. Raymond Fosdick, in his book on 
Crime in Police Circles, startles us with the statistics, 
showing that America is leading the world in this un- 
evitable notoriety. Chief Justice Taft complains that 
“the administration of criminal law in the United States 
is a disgrace to civilization.” The violations of the Eight- 
eenth Amendment to the Constitution are not confined 
to the hoodlums of back alleys but exist chiefly in the 
palaces of the rich by overdressed society people, roll- 
ing in luxury, who defy the laws of the government and 
decency—with their names perhaps on the communicant 
roll of the Church. 


Conspicuous Specimens 


Congress asked the Hammond Commission to discover 
and report the causes which led to the massacre in Her- 
rin, Illinois. The cause was not found in the foreign 
or colored character of the community. Herrin is an 
American community. Of the 61,002 population given 
by the last census, 54,052 are white, native-born, and 
1,825 are Negroes. 

A summary of the conflict, according to the Commis- 
sion, shows that it was a battle between the union and the 
non-union miners. The awful horrors were brought 
about by some of the unionists suggesting that they kill 
all of the non-unionists and stop the breed. This sug- 
gestion was acted upon, and between forty and sixty 
prisoners were lined up before a barbed wire fence and 
told to run, While they ran and were climbing the fence, 
the mob fired and sixteen were killed. Those who es- 


raga ye The Romance of Home Missions 


caped were pursued, some of whom were wounded were 
rounded up, taken into the city, tied together pe their. 
necks, led to the cemetery and butchered. 


According to the report of the Commission, this horror 
was not due to ignorance, nor to a foreign spirit, nor to 
immaturity of the people, nor to their distressed or op- 
pressed circumstances. None of these entered into the 
case. Only two causes can be assigned—the low sense of 
moral responsibility and accountability to the Judge of 
all the earth, and the lawlessness which develops when 
one body of men become antagonistic of the other and 
their numbers increase. 


The Law Enforcement Committee of the American 
Bar Association meeting at Minneapolis, Minn., furnishes 
the public the following illuminating report as to condi- 
tions and causes: 


“While the general population of the United States 
for the years 1910 until 1922 increased 14.9%, the crimi- 
nal population increased 16.6%. The criminal situation 
in the United States, so far as crimes of violence are 
concerned, is worse than any other civilized country. 
There were 17 murders in London last year and not one ~ 
of these crimes was unsolved. During the same period 
New York had 260 murders and obtained three convic- 
tions. It is estimated 7,850 murders were committed in 
the United States last year. During 1921 there were 
137 murders in Chicago. In the same year, throughout 
all England and Wales, there were 63 murders.” 


Throughout the whole country there is a widespread 
consensus of opinion that the “law’s delays” are largely 
the fault of the lawyers themselves. ‘Mrs. Partington 


The Romance of Home Missions Zao 


voices the sentiment of the Common People, who com- 
plains: “The witness on the stand is placed under orth 
and sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and as soon 
as he starts to tell the truth some lawyer jumps up hur- 
riedly and objects.” In the meantime, crime is on the in- 
crease and the people become so accustomed to it, that 
their indifference deadens the moral sensibilities of the 
nation. 


4. Schools and Colleges and Christianity 


Ever since the reporter published several years ago his 
famous article in one of the popular magazines of the day 
entitled, “Blasting at the Rock of Ages,” the discussion 
has raged in pulpit and press concerning the teaching and 
attitude of our educational institutions as to Christianity. 
Dr. G. W. McPherson, of Yonkers, N. Y., addressed a 
circular to the presidents of our institutions of learning, 
asking their candid attitude towards Christianity ; and the 
result was startling—which those further interested can 
find tabulated in his book, “The Crisis in Church and 
College.’ Notwithstanding exceptions and some pro- 
tests, opinion has crystallized in the generally accepted 
judgment that the great universities, if not antagonistic, 
are at least indifferent, and that their influence and teach- 
ing are decidedly rationalistic and subversive of Chris- 
tianity, at least to the extent of unsettling the minds and 
faith of the undergraduates. Professor Geo. McReady 
Price reaches the same conclusion, most emphatically in 
his suggestive treatise, “Poisoning Democracy.” 


The Literary Digest asserts that “The Bible is banned, 
or at least not read, in the schools of twelve states. We 
are told, though 23,000,000 people live in these twelv:. 


234 The Romance of Home Missions 


states, the officials whose opinions have excluded the Bible 
number not more than thirty. Wisconsin excludes the 
Bible as a whole, but plainly asserts that parts of it-mighi 
and should be read. Illinois pronounces the whole Bible 
‘A Sectarian Book,’ and, as such, excludes it. It has re- 
cently been excluded from the schools in California; and 
it is reported that the Supreme Court of Louisiana, has 
given a similar opinion.” 

Is a nation entitled to be considered Christian, where 
thoughtful parents hesitate to send their children to its 
leading universities lest their faith be undermined, and 
where 23,000,000—more than a fifth of its entire popula- 
tion—allow the Bible to be excluded from the schools, 
where their children are taught at the most impressionable 
period of life? If the Bible is the basis of moral char- 
acter, is not its exclusion one explanation of “Crime 
Waves” and the low standard of the “righteousness that 
exalteth a nation?” . 


5. International Relationships and Ideals 


America in the World War joined with other struggling 
nations to “make the world safe for Democracy,” and 
under the inspiring leadership of Woodrow Wilson, en- | 
tered upon an altruistic mission winning the enthusiastic 
admiration of suffering humanity. She co-operated in the 
reconstruction of the map of Europe in behalf of op- 
pressed people, guaranteeing them the right of “self- 
determination” in the working out of their own destiny 
and in the development of their national life. Then she 
turned her back and repudiated her own off-spring in the 
critical hour of their struggles with superhuman odds. In 
their peril of anarchy and of the internal forces of destruc- 


The Romance of Home Missions 235 
i 

tion, she left them to their fate, and is largely responsible 
for the unrest and the critical condition of Europe today. 
America failed the world in its awful crisis and played the 
part of “quitter” in the estimation of the nations. Her 
altruism oozed from the tips of her fingers, which justified 
Lloyd George at the Genoa Conference in charging her 
with selfishly hugging her money bags and leaving the 
world to its awful wretchedness. Fallen from her sublime 
heights of world leadership, she has lost the confidence oi 
the nations. 


Repudiating the League of Nations, she is largely re- 
sponsible for the wars and massacres, which might have 
been prevented by her dominating influence in an organ- 
ization, whose high purpose was to end wars and to settle 
national disputes by arbitration and unselfish diplomacy. 
Her glory has been dimmed, but the hopes of international 
brotherhood, with the United States again in the lead, 
have not entirely died out of the hearts of men. It is well 
nigh the universal consensus of mankind that she still 
holds in her hands the destiny of the nations. This opin- 
ion was expressed. by the Yorodzu, the Daily Paper in 
Japan, which recently said: -“It is in the power of 
America tq rescue the world or leave it to ruin.” Is this 
the reproach; or the challenge of paganism? Is she en- 
titled to assert her claims as a Christian Nation, if she 
does not practice Christianity in her contacts and inter- 
course with other nations, but instead, like the Priest and 
the Levite, passes them by and leaves them to their fate? 


- The Literary Digest pursues the subject into other 
fields, and questions not only America’s attitude but her 
influence upon the non-Christian Nations, plainly intimat- 
ing that her Christianity will be repudiated unless there 


236 The Romance of Home Missions 


is a change of heart on her part, characterized by a more 
Christian relation with other Nations: 


“The Amen of a Gunboat’s Cannon to a missionary’s 
prayer is not especially conducive to the early establish- 
ment of Christianity in pagan countries; since it signifies 
to the heathen that-the Western religion does not meet the 
ancient test, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ Too often, as recent 
history shows, the missionary has preached the Gospel of 
Christ only to have his words drowned in the thunder 
of a fusillade, which excites the polite rejoinder that the 
missionary’s government does not practise what he 
preaches. It is a sad story, this tale of the political rela- 
tions of West and East. The deeper you go into it, the 
more sordid it becomes. And if any American thinks he 
has reason why he may stand erect in the presence of Eng- 
lish or German or French or Russian publicans, and thank 
God he is not as other men, let him read again the con- 
clusion to which Tyler Dennet comes, in ‘Americans in 
Eastern Asia’: ‘No nation has escaped the valid charge 
of bad faith. The guili of all parties being clearly proven, 
it has seemed profitless to continue the discussion of guilt 
with a view to determining the relative degree of wicked- 
ness. Each nation, the United States not excepted, has 
made its contribution to the evil which now comprises the 
Far Eastern Question’.” 


Making the distinction between a Christian country 
and a Christian nation is equivalent to the essential dif- 
ference between Christendom and Christianity. This 
argument cumulative and growing in force may appro- 
priately conclude with the opinion of Dr. Charles L. 
Thompson, one of the great Missionary Statesmen of the 
age: 


The Romance of Home Missions 207) 


“Our Gospel is yet little more than a voice crying in 
the wilderness. It has not evangelized the people. We 
punctuate our creeds with stately church spires in great 
cities, but even under their shadow the people die friend- 
less and unregarded. By all the misery and wickedness, 
by all the doubt and despair of our congested population, 
we are not a Christian people. By-the infidelity of a 
thousand new communities in which the Church is but a 
feeble protest against conditions she has not changed—we 
are not a Christian people. By all the sodden sin and 
cruel crimes of mining camps, by all the fever of mammon, 
regardless of whom it consumes—in gay capitals, or lonely 
hamlets, or moving tents—we are not a Christian people. 
By all the menace of incoming tides of population, east 
or west, infidel or pagan—we are not a Christian people. 


“And a Christian people we must become, if we would 
not add one more to the wrecks of republics along the path 
of history.. .To this result there is only one road. Chris- 
tian missions must do the work they have so splendidly 
outlined . . . The missionary must go into the slums 
of the city and stay there until they brighten into Christiar. 
homes. He must camp on the trail of the advancing line 
of every population till the new settlements become the 
abode of virtue and religion. 


The Gospel of Home Missions 


It is a trite saying, that the only sovereign remedy for a 
lost soul is the Gospel of the Son of God. This being 
indisputably true, it follows logically that the most effec- 
tive means for the salvation of America is the Gospel of 
Home Missions. This is by no means an implication that 
the pastorate does not play a conspicuous and essential 


238 The Romance of Home Missions 


part in the program of Christianizing the nation. It iS 
however, one thing to win a nation but a very different 
proposition to hold it steady in its Christian purpose and 
ideals. The pastorate must not simply play its co-opera- 
tive part in evangelizing but must assume the almost ex- 
clusive responsibility of maintaining the faith. In addition 
to this the strong pastorate performs an indisputable func- 
tion in furnishing the benevolent contributions for the 
sustentation of the home mission fields—which is at the 
same time an indirect investment for its own salvation. 
In North Carolina a city church paid a percentage of the 
salary of a mission church. This mission pastorate re- 
sulted in the conversion of a prominent man who after- 
wards moved, with his church membership, to the city, ~ 
and contributed annually to the city church more than the 
entire amount it had expended on the salary of the home 
missionary. | | 

If the Presbyterian Church had appreciated this fact in 
the past, it would today be overwhelmingly the largest 
denomination in the United States, instead of continually 
debating the question, why it does not grow as fast as 
some others. 


The Distinctive Task 


It is not the purpose of this treatise to suggest that 
Assembly’s Home Missions is the synonym for all the 
spiritual forces which are leavening the Nation. Large 
credit must be accorded Congregational and Presbyterial 
activities in the sphere of missions, without which our 
failure as a church would be conspicuous and even dis- 
astrous. At the same time it must be equally recognized’ 
that the local operations are tremendously handicapped. 


The Romance of Home Missions 239 


The lack of adequate financial support prevents a con- 
sistent purpose and persistent policy. The Presbytery 
often becomes a debating society in which the insistent 
demands for speedy dividends on home mission invest- 
ments are so compelling as to embarrass its supervisors, 
resulting in a change of control or an unwise change of 
policy, greatly damaging the cause. Strong organizations 
like a well-articulated Synodical work or the Assembly’s 
Home Missions secure in the end larger and more per- 
manent results. In proof of this contention, contrast the 
wasted effort in the Mountains a generation ago—exhibit- 
ing scarcely a corporal’s guard at present to show for the 
investments—with the magnificent work of Assembly’s 
Home Missions today in that identical section. Having 
a continuous life and influenced by a consistent policy, 
the Executive Committee of the Assembly has never in- 
augurated a mission only to abandon it after a brief period 
because of difficulties, discouragement and failure to pro- 
duce immediate results. It points with pardonable pride 
to its aggressive and enlarging work in the Appalachian 
Mountains—churches, missions, institutions, evangelistic 
operations—unequalled by few and unsurpassed by any 
denomination. The only reason why the entire Church is 
not enthusiastic over its success is because the Church is 
not fully acquainted with the facts. 


The Great Objectives 


1. Brevity compels us to confine this interpretation of 
the work to the two essentials. The first objective is 
evangelism, the heart and soul of the great Commission. 
Other things may be important, and many may be made 
subservient to its purpose, but evangelism is vitally funda- 


240 The Romance of Home Missions 


mental to the mission of the church. The church whicli 
even obscures it resembles the play of Hamlet with the 
part of Hamlet omitted. The need of evangelism is as 
old as sin. It is gathering added force with the increasing 
populations of our country—each new census being an 
unanswerable argument and an increased incentive. 


The United Presbyterian Church several years ago ap- 
pointed a Commission on Soul Winning. After most 
careful investigation, its chairman, Dr. J. D. Rankin, 
startled the country with the following report as to facts, 
figures and conditions: 


“In 1800 seven persons out of every 100 were members 
of the church. In 1850, fifteen in every hundred; in 1870, 
seventeen; in 1880, twenty; in 1900, twenty-four. Since 
that time the Church has not kept pace with the increase 
of population. Last year our population increased more 
than 2 per cent., while the membership of the combined 
evangelical churches increased 1 4-5 per cent. | 


“There seems to be a crisis on. Is there a turn in the 
tide? Is the Church not a match for our twentieth cen- 
tury civilization? Is she inadequate to the demands of 
modern life? Are we to witness the defeat of Chris-_ 
tianity? Is the great and blessed mission of the Christ 
to be buried under the stony soil of this materialistic age ?. 
* * * Your Committee is optimistic in every drop of 
its blood, but it is folly to ignore our danger.” 


In offsetting these disturbing figures and disquieting 
conditions, by seeking comfort outside of “organized 
Christianity,” are we unwittingly turning to “another 
Gospel, which is not another?” Is the great Commission 


The Romance of Home Missions 241 


a spent force? After nineteen hundred years, Philosophy, 
Philanthropy, Science, Moral Culture and Education have 
alike failed to lift a lost world out of the filth of sin. The 
Gospel alone has proven the power of God unto salvation. 
It is effective alike for the untutored savage and the pro- 
foundest philosopher. Their need is the same and the 
remedy identical. No other method of bringing this 
spiritual dynamic to bear upon a lost soul has been devised 
than Evangelism. Should not the church repudiate the 
suggestion of “the gospel of modernism,” lay new em- 
phasis upon its evangelistic mission and gird itself en- 
thusiastically to its task? 


2. Scarcely less essential is the necessity of new em- 
phasis upon righteousness. An evangelized soul can never 
become an effective, long-sustained evangelistic force by 
the mere impetus of impulse. A changed life, whose 
dominant element is righteousness, is the only irresistible 
spiritual force. Christianity is not mere profession of 
faith, nor ritualistic observance of ceremonies nor assent 
to doctrinal creed. Applied Christianity is life which takes 
account of the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. 
If the church could get this fact into the consciousness 
of its membership, it would convert its latent power into 
the sanctified machinery, which under the operation of the 
Holy Ghost, would convert the world. The tremendous 
twofold task of the church, therefore, is to bring to bear 
the impact of the Gospel on the unsaved by means of a 
new widespread spirit of evangelism, which shall sweep 
through the world like the fire of Pentecost, and to awaken 
the whole church to a new higher spiritual life character- 
ized by a righteousness, which reflects “the glory of God 
in the face of Jesus Christ.” 


242 The Romance of Home Missions 


The Twofold Need 


By no means exhaustive, and in no sense ignoring the 
supreme need of the all-essential effective agency of the 
Spirit of God, this argument emphasizes the two chief 
present needs of Assembly’s Home Missions in the aggres- 
sive campaign for Christianizing the nation. 


1. The first is financial. No apology is offered by the 
Church in the appeal for funds. Money in its relation 
to the Kingdom is a divinely ordained means. God 
sustained Elijah by a miraculous increase in the “widow’s 
cruse of oil’ and fed Elisha by the agency of “ravens,” 
but these were extraordinary interventions of providence. | 
The ordinary means of propagating the Kingdom is 
through the instrumentality of the stewardship of posses- 
sions, entrusted to God’s people for this avowed purpose. 


In the providence of God and under His divine favor, 
the growth of Assembly’s Home Missions has expanded 
by leaps and bounds. The blessing of His hand is the 
finger of God that points to a forward movement. Who 
is authorized to call a halt, if Providence speaks “to the 
children of Israel that they. go forward?” Wide open 
doors and the cry of human need are the voice of God— 
whether or not the Church shall heed the call. 


‘Judged by the demands and surveys, the very least 
amount now needed to conduct the work of Assembly’s 
Home Missions on the present basis, adequately and 
without loss, is One Million Dollars. From time to time 
the question has been submitted to the various home mis- 
sion agencies of the dependent Presbyteries for the needy 
classes as to the funds adequate to meet the demands of 
the Cause, and the replies indicate an amount never less 


Sg i ek oe le 
: 


The Romance of Home Missions 243 


than a Million Dollars, and ordinarily aggregate three and 
a half Million. The applications mount higher each year 
till a million dollars is now adjudged the minimum. One 
single item by which to judge the whole is the fact that 
applications are on file and unanswered—some in waiting 
nearly two years—for church erection alone exceeding a 
quarter of a million dollars! This is but one of the eight 
departments of Assembly’s Home Missions — Ex pede 
Herculem. 


2. No less imperative is the fundamental need of at 
least one thousand missionaries to accomplish the task as- 
signed its Home Mission Committee by the General As- 
sembly. It cannot be successfully prosecuted by an 
inadequate force; and it calls for the very highest type— 
men with unquestioned ability, consecrated spirit and a 
perseverance that cannot be allured by tempting offers 
nor driven from the field by insurmountable difficulties. 
The type needed is exhibited and exalted in this treatise. 
One of the saintliest men that ever adorned the member- 
ship of any denomination—as gentle as a woman—shocked 
a group of hearers by a sudden outburst in protest against 
crediting the claims of certain men with the title and 
rewards of Home Missionaries, who in his judgment enter 
the service not from choice or love but from necessity 
because they were shut out of other avenues, or who, 
volunteering, use the home mission service as mere “step- 
ping stones to higher things”—in their estimation. Not 
only is an inadequate gift a wasted investment, but an 
unfinished task demoralizes a promising prospect and 
constitutes the years of service rendered a wasted effort. 

‘In the Recessional of Kipling occurs the familiar and 
striking statement : 


244 The Romance of Home Missions 


“Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, 
An humble and a contrite heart.” 

Such will be forever most acceptable, but “a contrite 
heart” is not the only “sacrifice” laid upon the altar well- 
pleasing to God—“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by 
the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living 
sacrifice.” The “burnt offering” of the Jewish dispensa- 
tion and “living sacrifice” of the New Testament are but 
synonyms of a consecrated life. “He that loseth his life 
for my sake shall find it’ They that are “buried alive” 
in some obscure home mission field are inevitably predes- 
tined to a blessed resurrection, and “shall shine as the 
brightness of the firmament.” 


Wanted—Men 


“Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, 
and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places 
thereof, if ye can find a man.” This is God’s advertise- 
ment—‘“Wanted, a man.” It represents God on a voyage 
of discovery; not in search of new worlds in the bound- 
less realms of space. His search is in the streets of the 
city, and in the country hamlets as well, for the most valu- 
able article the world contains—not jewels of silver or 
gold, nor pearls of great price, but for “a man.” _ ithe 
world needs statesmen to rule empires, society needs men 
of integrity to reform its shams and dishonest business 
methods. God needs men to establish the Kingdom of 
righteousness. Home Missions is His agency, and it 
appeals for men of the type and character of those whose 
noble deeds and worthy lives fill the pages of this treatise. 


Wanted—Men, to invest their lives for God, who ate 
deaf to every call except the service which will yield the 


The Romance of Home Missions 245 


richest fruit for the Kingdom. They will attract little 
attention and wear no halo for long and trying periods of 
toil and patient endurance, but in the end they will rear 
superstructures on more enduring foundations than 
granite, which will eventually lift them into the limelight 
where they will shine “as the stars forever and ever.” 


Wanted—Men! Who will answer God’s call to unique 
and unequalled service—‘‘Also I heard the voice of the 
Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? 


> 99 


Then said I, ‘Here am I; send me’. 


Wanted—An Appreciation 


It would be an easier task to find men responsive to the 
call of service, if the Church itself placed a higher valua- 
tion on its fundamental work of home missions. Its 
neglect has been the costliest mistake of the Presbyterian 
Church. It can never entirely recover lost ground, but it 
can somewhat atone for the past by placing a new emphasis 
on the cause. Let the church begin to recognize its real 
heroes. As the average pastor discourses on heroism and 
sacrifice, the audience anticipates him, expecting to hear 
of David Livingston, Robert Moffatt, Wm. Carey, and our 
own beloved Samuel N. Lapsley—noble men, whose names 
are immortal. Why not add to the list in the galaxy of 
saints, Edward O. Guerrant, George R. Buford and Edgar 
Tufts? They will not suffer by comparison; and it will 
thrill multitudes by an acquaintance with these hitherto 
unknown saints and heroes. 


The church might well continue its good work of ap- 
preciation by advertising and supporting more generously 
its neglected cause and thus make atonement by a great 


246 The Romance of Home Missions 


awakening and response to its needs and prospects. Al- 
ready the first notes of a new song are being sounded. 
The Women’s Auxiliaries are leading the music. The 
Home Mission Council is beginning to catch the inspira- 
tion of this new song and is already supporting the swell- 
ing anthem as may be judged by the following action: 


“The Home Mission Council through Synodical repre- 
sentatives, meeting in Montreat in August, speaking in 
the name of and for the whole church, put itself on record 
as to the supreme importance of Home Missions in the 
following official, emphatic and valuable testimony : 


‘The spirit of Home Missions does not dominate the 
thought and activities of our Church. While there has. 
been a commendable increase in the interest in Home Mis- 
sions generally among our people during the last few 
years, and while the spirit of Home Missions is very 
strong in a few quarters of the Assembly, yet as a whole 
this cause has not come into its rightful place. It does 
not receive the attention and support which it deserves, 
and which the Scriptures and the times demand. 


‘Tf our Church is to grow, if the welfare of our Nation 
is to be preserved, and if the world is to be evangelized, 
America must be Christianized. This can be accomplished 
only as we stress the fundamental importance of Home 
Missions. No other cause should take precedence over 
it, either in the sympathy and gifts of our people or in 
the dedication of life to its service.’ ”’ 


May this new song of growing appreciation catch the 
ear of the whole church till it swells into a magnificent 
chorus, that shall be heard from Maryland to Mexico and 
from Kansas City to Key West! 


The Romance of Home Missions 247 


Home Missions, a World Factor 


No Home Mission objective terminates on itself. The 
Christianization of America is a worthy aim, and an in- 
spiring task, but it is not the final goal. The ultimate 
end is the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Home Missions 
is essentially a world factor—a conspicuous part of a 
World Kingdom Task. The church is just beginning to 
give an interpretation to the sentiment of the Poet, of 
which he himself had no adequate or spiritual perception: 


“Yet I doubt not thro’ the ages one increasing purpose 
runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the 
process of the suns.” 


It is the establishment of the Kingdom of God—‘the 
bright prophetic day” of story and song, the prayer and 
inspiration of every Christian life. 


The most hopeful feature of the signs of the times is 
the strengthening conviction of “the wholeness and one- 
ness of the task,” growing out of a sense of brotherhood 
and partnership with all mankind. No nation can be 
evangelized today apart from the whole. No wonder a 
former missionary in Shanghai and editor of the China 
Christian Advocate insists, that “the missionary must 
develop a new method of approach if Christianity is to 
conquer the world.” Paul Hutchinson in the Atlantic 
Monthly reinforces this contention, urging “a reappraisal 
of Christian Missions,” insisting on a “radical readjust- 
ment of their missionary programs, which will give as 
much attention to checkmating international sins fostered 
by supposedly Christian lands as to seeking converts n 
other hemispheres.” 


248 The Romance of Home Missions 


Dr. Edward L. Mills in the “Centenary Survey” argues: 
“What the world has been waiting for through the cen- 
turies is a sample Christian Nation. America is the 
proving grounds for Christianity. Consequently every 
movement which better expresses Christian ideals in 
American life, makes easier the task of every missionary 
abroad.” The missionaries who are making the supreme 
sacrifice in heathen lands to introduce Christianity are 
thwarted by commercial agents, globe trotters and nominal! 
Christians, who negative the testimony of the most earnest 
missionary. Non-Christian peoples will judge Christianity 
not so much by the preaching of the missionary as by the 
national character of those he represents. The projection 
of any type of Christianity into new fields of adventur: 
will depend largely upon its own inherent vitality and 
force of righteousness. Evidently the intensity of the 
type will determine the extensiveness of its penetrating 
power in its reach unto the uttermost parts of the earth. 


In this age of increasing intelligence and widespread . 
publicity, the events of the day are known simultaneously 
practically over the entire globe. The conditions prevail- 
ing in the United States are as well known in Japan as in 
America. A student n India, judging Christianity by 
America, recently expressed the opinion that “Christianity 
is a beautiful theory but utterly impracticable.” At the 
Continental Conference of the Alliance of the Reformed — 
Churches held in July, 1923, at Zurich, Switzerland, a 
missionary related this incident: 


Two Mohammedan brothers in the East manifested ex- 
actly opposite attitudes towards Christianity. One made 
a profession of his faith. The other being asked his 


The Romance of Home Missions 249 


opinion of his brother’s conversion answered: “It does 
not disturb me much. I am planning for him a visit to 
America, in order that he may see Christianity as it is 
practiced. He will return completely cured.” The worst 
things that can be said against Christianity are the prac- 
tices of so called Christian Countries. 


The Challenge 


Paganism is challenging America to a trial of strength— 
and a testing of moral principles. America cannot decline 
the challenge. Upon its issue will depend the vindication 
of Christianity and the destiny of Nations. The most 
powerful argument for Christianity in this age—absolutely 
unanswerable—would be a Christianized America; not 
necessarily by any means the conversion of all its masses 
of peoples, but America redeemed from its national sins, 
dominated by, Christian ideals and represented in all the 
courts of the world by Christian agencies. 


America is the miracle of History. Israel was God’s 
chosen nation of the Old Dispensation. It was formed 
by a process of exclusion, almost as rigid as the caste 
system. America is built upon the opposite principle of 
inclusion, absorbing into its national life constituent 
elements of all nations and by its mystic laboratory trans- 
forming them into a cosmopolitan unity—the chosen people 
of its new era. Tested for service Israel failed to bring 
forth the fruits of righteousness, and in consequence lost 
their inheritance and spiritual supremacy—‘“the Kingdom 
of God taken from them.” Almost over night the leader- 
ship of the nations—inseparable from service—has been 
thrust upon America; and she has discovered her soul in 


250 The Romance of Home Missions 


her altruistic mission. The spiritual conquest of herself 
looms larger than any other task today—especially in view 
of her unique position, holding the destiny of the world in 
her hands. In the crisis, impending and testing, she must 
not lose her stewardship of service—and her own soul. 


The wisest man preached: “To everything there is a 
season and a time to every purpose under heaven.” In 
modern terms, Shakespeare has expressed the same 
thought in his “tide in the affairs of men’”—equivalent in 
philosophical language to “the psychological moment,” 
pregnant with destiny. The distressing religious condition 
of our country, the battle with paganism which has been 
transferred to America, the menace to vital Christianity, 
and the influence upon the destiny of Nations—all demand 
the spiritual conquest of America as the most vital and far- 
reaching task of the Church today. There may have been 
a “time” for the emphasis in the interests of the Kingdom 
upon other things. No matter where it may have been 
rightly placed at other times, the welfare of the world and 
the triumph of the gospel demand at this crisis that the 
emphasis be concentrated on America. To lose the battle 
in America today, is to postpone the spiritual conquest of 
the world for generations; to win America for Christ and © 
the Kingdom now, is to guarantee the triumphant sway 
of the cross, in its spiritual influence, “to the uttermost 
part of the earth.” 


Sohn g Dado es hey EN a ot Sd 


PSA hat iy spd ee 


The Romance of Home M issions Zon 
QUESTIONNAIRE 


LESSON I 
Generalities 


Name the other books of the Author. 

State the purpose of this study. 

Show that Truth is stranger than fiction. 

What is the difference between Romance and Fiction? 


Name the phases of Home Mission service. 


Give some contrasted figures magnifying the Task. 


LESSON II 
Expansion 


Give striking comparisons showing the extent of territory. 
Relate the corresponding march of the Church. 

Give some account of El Paso Presbytery. 

Relate briefly the story of Oklahoma Synod. 

Tell of various expanding frontiers. 

Is the Frontier disappearing or increasing? Why? 


LESSON III 
The Hills 


How is the country divided by mountain ranges? 

Give facts and figures of the Appalachians. 

Connect Scriptural events with mountains. 

Tell of “The Shepherd of the Hills.” 

Relate humorous and pathetic incidents. 

Give an account of at least one of our missionary institutions. 


LESSON IV 
Nationality 


‘Illustrate by their lives the varying types of immigrants. 


What is the duty of the State toward foreign peoples? 
Give account of early missionaries among Indians. 
Tell of our own missionaries. 

Relate beginnings of Tex.-Mex. 

Give account of the Jewish Mission. 


Zag The Romance of Home Missions 


LESSON V 


Race Relationships 


What constitutes the race problem? 

Relate the achievements of the eminent Negro Scientist. 

Is the Negro an asset or liability? Why? 

Relate the stories of (a) Maria Bea (b) Sheppard, (c) 
Sam Daly, (d) Charles: Birthright. 

Give account of the Snedecor Memorial Synod. 

. Tell the story of Stillman Institute. 


PINES 


nur 


LESSON VI 
Church Building 


State the necessity of Church Erection. 

What are Memorials and Annuities? 

Illustrate by El Paso the results of building investments. 
Relate the story of R. P. Walker. 

Tell of the development of the Rio Grande Valley. 
Give the judgment of the Home Mission Council. 


Se 


LESSON VII 
Personality 


State the influence of personality in history and in missions. 
Tell of the Unknown Heroes. 

Give composite story of Dr. Skinner and Tex.-Mex. Institute. 
Illustrate voluntary service by work of Dr. Bryan. 
Interweave story and Ebenezer Hotchkin and Indians. 

Relate the story and work of a woman missionary. 


ON eS 


LESSON VIII 
World Kingdom Task 


Show that America is a Christian Country. 

Prove that it is not a Christian Nation. 

State the two great objectives in missionary effort. 
Tell of the financial needs of the work. 

Show the need of men. 

Stress Home Missions as a World Factor. 


SR ATE cent ee 


572—(1) 


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een eee Mer AO ATIST ee soe. ae oie oie o's cals Go sles e 3 sa 
Sean R ES EAMETS Fer Se OT Ua als en's Woah a's arelen os 
DRESS TIFISUIQNILY 255 Vee s oan en's oes aga olecin e0)e siete 
eA RENN ot. ha. 56 5's Sisis <b ae bees n'a Sse oe 
eae ETUC POA oe 0a sae ss + oie asy Gels 8 ott yao shears 
ECP ACCS Fee) f cia at sae blee 5%R woe ates 


SOS SGT aged peso Aine ane eee a 


254 The Romance of Home Missions 


Page 
E 
Badgefield.:S> Cine rae eee flee ae eke ns eee ditied 14 
Eliot: George, quoted. tlh, sos: tue ules tats ama aera 10 
HifPaso, Lexi suse. ie ean ee omen Od Soe 33, 162 
EXpanSiongs aucce Gece esos eee aes Cann eae LEAS RR 23, 40 
Hrickson,; Rev. “Alireds =o h-ae: 2 et. orien lee ete eee 77 
Evangelist oyecohs a oils als odie ih ovg tale ped 3 tare bend 240 
F i 
Fearing: Matias de /au a2 ees wade eet ote ee ee "137 
Frontier ‘Increasing 2/.:3...4 5 34.42 «debe na eel eee 47-49 
Frontier, : Presbytery /.\6) a0Uen ea ceva ois ae ce ee 31 
Frontier, Synod os oe. es Gea ee Soe oo oa aera 34 
G 
Girardeau, ‘Rev. JnoceLr. 2). evs pai sts tees ba 147 
Glasgow, Rev. S2.M4 quoted )o472 soca ay ce ee eee 169 
Goldman, ‘Emma \. 25'. fass els oe eee oe ee 2 a ee 93 
Graves, Jno. Temple,’ quoted) ..)).277+ 7.5 s6 mene ores apes 55 
Guetrant, Rev. Edward. O)e) 7). o sie ne ost 61-66 
H . 
Hamtnond ‘Commission 22. 8): 2 ..¢ 420 eee eee 231 
“Hell Creek-to Kingdom: Comes. .24 00.'as: eee ee 59 
Hemispheres of Service "sh. £25005... see ste ae eee Sat tee 223 
Heroes). Nameless iets (ut noe tea eee eee by Ae 67-185 
Herrin | Massacre s3ii9s io iieiace ceesecle aes Laney eee 231 
Hiehland> Schools) cfg ite see eae es Se Ly hak: 70 
ELIstory (a) hkcelt sw alels loiter a Wuatbews obi sot cnt en al 85-183 
Home: Missionaries ‘eulogizedic.5 7: 2.0 hats oo oe ae 13 
Home Missions, Council} quoted’. 3, ss. 5. «ta geen ene 179, 248 
Home, Missions; Gospel’ of) .udice iawn decd eee 2a0 
Home: Missions, New: Emphasis! 4:; 72.0. +» aspidels Freee 250 
Home’ Mission Results: (nfs tse ewe siatecss ees ieee Se 48. 
Home Missions, World Factor Ao 0.02.20 tee ee 247 
Hugo, Olla ee al a i then rie ee ee 165 
Hunter: Memorial 1.0% 2 Os Ae cae 160 
I 
Ifustrations 330). ia WF oe pee te ony Dee Ne 64-66 
Indians a ied oe btiaincs oe ae ea dan re SL ee 90, 100 
Indian“ Incidents” <. ..22'h.c sc eke ele ccs ok ola et eka 107 
Indian’: Migration” (4... sc. Coe. eae cas Sales 107 
Immigration .22)..05 0. nae ihe eke et ne ee 87 
Immigration, -Agsimilation® ...% 22h cuok + «acta 96 
Immigration, Restricted... ..\,dah¥. «as. cu+ ss. en 95 
Immigration, Types Of as iy aaa aan 0 pease i aie 


Institutions, Missionary <.f2: Ja iie5.08 sae tela ee 60-76 


———— ll ll 


The Romance of Home Missions 250 


] Page 
MeN (SECIS ess a sc v's bls ot 4 ale cin. sva gine e 115 
BS 
I TE GM EGS CEs 87 AS SR a 235 
Biecaveniig ther Nation: GQUOtEd ss... ce vec e eee ns 23 
LD AL ETS TTS Ga ao Yn 60 
teat UOTE wich Vee ces ous oes dees ode eens 236 
LEE Ce er) QUIT Ae ote in Ad «oc, e'nle V'ele been Gk pe) om 149 
eR SACI WAL r ate TP, slew css die Ha e's Nodaleelale a 8 
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M 
mE CIC UL OUTC Ieee ee. RSL Sal. aha wee ea 26 
Perle ert CV et PAV CUOTCKY 0 ul. ech s ee ence we ae ade 56 
McMillan, Revs Homer, quoted ..............0..0ccc cee 177 
Se ee SP ere ee art elt ce avi wie bi die Walate wieive ele s 160 
RTM ATILCCIE tee) Fess ac etd ss i Wn'alcle wins oi ciols alegee e 244 
Pee MR CEES RISSIONIS tire acs ere =k ichk sb cad cle Fd wow de a thin 112 
Rr rme Pe  WATy Foe UOTE oo ood os occ lene cidy ole ialelere worse 248 
WarrImMne Geese Ue tIIOTEC fe oe ae Vie’ «jaa.» wie tes 60's Seared Ayer cece 14 
ee TREE SECA Eee eo tee oS. a igrd Wathhaid va De ages 12 
Memes teste OLN AMICON oie vc acc a ule ob ca dab wishes Ba creche 1] 
PA BomIR eV PCVV UW VV.| GUOLEC. sho cacke ss orb whelcegsveeesies ' 193 
LVS OSETTTTTTS bap: 5 SF ts A a en ei 91 
eee Sse Ve re a. s .  cisdass wc opa)a be atdeiee > 208 
PonEveVemIS MeL VITOMINICHt 1.2 ic vos es oss siete wove vo tim egy eds 52 
rer SPIRE CSOTILCES | OTA ohh ous dale cals whe wig eid anes alee 54 
eerie SCLiNtital EVVENtS +o) s cis< « bcake aiy'esls ecide sah 's 9 53 
N 
NMR ee ee eo a a eld oso ale elec olete 5 74 
PSR TSTIRSIATY IN GCCEC ee gdisicis dies accs\se sie ot oje da dels clas 248 
a MMMM CER OTNIANIC®, OF Veen oie eless vc ces vee g ce via gslwa erg ace 85 
MEE OIC RT ISSION | G5) deve o's pales si< ooole ook se balesislesewd 242 
EE ee re tr cal ecb huh Ge wes edcveeravees 123-128 
PP MMPS ACINEVEINCNTS Of oo... sce ee eens dwaavenecances 133 
meme eset OF. Liability ....sise.cse esc easesecneeas 134 
Reem ea UTeTiaty VV Ole \.*. oo. ss oss cla nem ene nance 136 
IMIR CVI DEBS NG Py eax d ld sc. d 0s ease sled vb nis b¥ «0 46 
O 
Mr Pee Pts EDOM CIVMISSIONN s oo <.cv cs clos eo piel cin dele s clas wise 239 
SRCIIINGTIVE IMISSIONATY) cous ct cess ys vets genes dees 100 
SMM EFEPEMMEESEL SPs EU OLE PTE ice Quinine alps b'dae ¢ lata’e%s 179 
Spe iatinan te resp vieriat: COMege oc edb s eles os te cae eee 109 
Oklahoma Resources ........... PLS So ON IR ee pala Rac 45 
pean eS VCO CT OANIZER We. fos yw cle bas dissin ale sabe ao 39 


256 The Romance of Home Missions 


Page 
P 
Paganism, Challenge of ...............- eer i 5) 4 | 249 
Pioneers ii Wek bes cas Boek CNG Srieeg oe Bir s einateleet on een 22, 27, 37, 41 
Pideressing fs. dois citde ete Ree es on beagle noe > seen 19 
Purpose, Statement’ of ¥.5 2009 64025 lew wip ole 1 bio bya oe autres Ze 
R 
Race Relationships ........... PP Pee ee ae ao . 123 
Rankin) (Rev2 Je Ds. quoted)... ie 2) a0 -8t ee 240 
Real’ Life veaibictions orig oes nhs cine Set nee eee 10 
Rélationships: =.5 feckc san clebidae ielycee © «lee ae ct. een 229 
Relationships, International)... i... 8 cee eee 234 
Resources,’ Material and Spiritual .°. 2702... il. 22s ee a . 20 
Righteousness) fas esice oa 2 wee clei tee cue te otet are eee 241 
Romances vs. Hictioni aici. teen hey siren creel te 1] 
S . 
San: Antonio,« (exi". aicee see ee at uate © eee Sateen 180 
Schurz. Carls oye ite eta ek aie icttls bie eee 88 
Stott Rev. Walteres: wai oi: tase na) eee hace | eee 114, 194 
Service, (Various biases? Of van.te sare y oe steed ree ee eee Shits 
Shadden MisstAnnie asta. bones heen © LCS Tea 213 
Sheppard,- Rev: WtrHe (aioe oe eae oe ae Ave 138 
Skinners Revi Je Wi. Se a ieee ote estes a ae erence 200 
Snedecor; URev.~Jo.Gi re Gs Shake Os Cea ee eee thc a ADSI 
Shedecor Memorial: Synodi.¢iv.-2, 1.40) 2 aes outings iene 152 
Smith; Mrs: Eleanora*B, quoted... 774. eee. een 172 
Smith; “Rey. Wa; quoted 7. oc 2a bee see he te Pins 13 
Statistics bake ce oe hen are Oe es Oe RO ee 19, 20, 288 
Steiner, UE dward*2:7-t. 050 ots tee es ioe oe ae ae 90 
Stillman “Institute victe i cata oe te nel eee eee 151 
Stillman, Revi Gs Ae Us ake Ch Gee ce ee 148 
Stuart: Robinson, ; «Pent SeOR aah GUS tite oars eee Fav 
Survey of Field (piggies ci getate ec. 2h 0k. ogee 17 
cL 
Task. Distinctiont + ime fa 0 hl oa i. oe ets co ee 238 
Task; "Wholeness and’ Qneness 5.3). Ph.c" tes Cees 224 
Task, Woorld-Kirigdom ) e300! toa) Poke age tee 222 
TEXAS. (ACs Gh eas oe as Wed ba alee ail a tec 43 
Tex.-Meré ‘Institute. 07... % wet bes Wists otc ts cae eee 201 
Tributes,-to Missionaries’ ), 2 shih 22 baci ee se eee 13 
Triumphs: of: Science i .c4 yo hepa oe nates se eee & 
Twicetold:‘Tales@.i 922) oan oth BOR eae aa soe ae 14 
Trotzkey yee che oe os oe pole oes ie Celine ante ge ee 93 
Tertithi vs: Fiction’ Fie. h bo de teh hoes oat seis Seite ae ee 7 


Tufts, Revi: Edgar dick SOS a sal 2 2b he. oa ee 191 


The Romance of Home Missions (537); 


Page 
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Metre SCALES AC OMIPOSICG, Series oo fs 6s sie viele ach oe'e'p goes 0 3 86 
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